The Pros and Cons of Working from Home

Before the pandemic struck, working from home was a privilege that few workers enjoyed and many envied. After being forced to work remotely for the past two years, we realize that there are both pros and cons to telecommuting.  

• Pro: More flexibility to take care of appointments and errands. One of the hardest things about a 9-to-5 desk job is that it prevents you from being able to handle almost anything else that comes up in your life. When you work from home, while you still have to meet your deadlines and be available before meetings and other tasks, you generally have a wider bandwidth to tend to other responsibilities without jeopardizing your job.

• Con: No physical separation between work and leisure time. Many who work from home lamented that they often find themselves working around the clock, since their workday has no definite start or end times; those lines can often become blurred.

• Pro: Fewer interruptions from meetings and chitchat. It's easier to get into a deep state of focused work when you're in your home office without colleagues dropping by and sitting down impromptu to talk about their weekends. Limiting unnecessary interruptions from your colleagues is a big plus of working from home and is one reason many remote workers are often more productive than office-based workers.
• Con: Easy to misread cues via electronic communications. Many who work from home pointed out the difficulty of getting the tone right through digital communication systems, such as email, chat, social media and text. Without body language, facial expressions and other cues, remote employees must put in extra effort to maintain positive communications.
• Pro: No commute time or expense. You can save a lot of money and avoid wasting hours spent getting to and from work when your office is right down the hall.  Avoiding traffic battles tops the list of benefits for some of those who work from home.

• Con: You have to make the effort to get a change of scenery. What can be a blessing can also become a curse in the form of cabin fever. Those who work from home lamented that where they work during the day is the exact same place where they'll be sitting later that evening; getting involved in their work often translates to spending a huge portion of the day indoors.
  
  
• Pro: More time spent with family. While the "con" above of having blurred boundaries between work and leisure time can definitely create chaos, there's an upside for families: more time together. Office workers must kiss their loved ones goodbye each morning when heading off to work; not so for virtual workers, who can work side by side with a work-from-home spouse or with kids who are learning in a digital classroom.
  
  
• Con: Less in-person contact with co-workers. While you may have more time with loved ones when working from a home office, the flipside is less opportunity for face time (minus a screen) with people at your company. If you enjoy office-based camaraderie and like to be able to socialize with your team in person, then the remote life might make you miserable. For others, in-person collaboration is more dynamic and helps them to be more creative.

• Pro: You can often do your work when you're most productive. It's still always essential when working from home to be mindful of your team's needs and be available to dial in for virtual meetings. But remote employees generally have greater latitude to select their time of peak productivity to accomplish their most important work and – depending on who else is working at home with them – have more quiet time to hone in on tasks that require concentration.

• Con: You are not on site for the in-office perks. You can't swing by the break room and grab a cup of coffee or a doughnut from the box if you're working from home. If there's a perk you like about being in the office, then working from home may make you miss it.

With more and more companies giving employees the choice of returning to the office, continuing to work from home or providing a hybrid work environment to offer the best of both worlds, it’s more important than ever that you are aware of the pros and cons.

https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/articles/pros-and-cons-of-working-from-home