The pandemic has developed remote work

For several months now, the Covid-19 epidemic has been sweeping through the world, affecting our daily life, everything has changed enormously in every aspect, including social and professional issues. The possibility of performing your work remotely, i.e. from your home or from any friendly place, has developed quite intensively in recent months.

If for any reason you choose this type of work, you are probably wondering if you will find yourself in such a system, what will you gain, and what will you lose?

Let us therefore analyse the advantages and disadvantages of such work. Let’s start with the advantages …

• The ability to work with any place wherever you want, because you decide how to organize yourself and perform the tasks entrusted to you, the only thing that obliges you is the need to perform the commissioned work.
• Save time and money. You work remotely, so you don’t have to waste time on commuting, and thus money on fuel or a public transport ticket, if you are sleepy, additional minutes of sleep will probably be useful for the whole long day.
• Remote work is a wonderful solution for people who have health problems. In the event that your health and well-being do not allow you to take up work duties, you can wait with starting work until your strength returns, and then you can easily catch up by staying longer.
• When you stay out of the office, you can afford the luxury of working, for example in pyjamas, without makeup and an elegant hairstyle, because the Dress Code is not obligatory for you.
• When you feel like eating something specific, you don’t have to wait for any lunch break, you just have the opportunity to make yourself a meal at any time and in any form.
• Even if you are a resident of a small town or village, you can still be a great specialist working for reputable big companies, and you have the opportunity to improve your qualifications in the comfort of your own home.
• If your earnings at your employer are not satisfactory, you can take advantage of an additional job if your current employer agrees, and time allows you to reconcile several tasks at once.

These advantages could be enumerated and enumerated, and probably everyone working remotely is able to add a plus of such employment, based on their own experience, but is such work only advantages, or are there also disadvantages?

Let’s talk about the disadvantages

Most of us usually like direct contact with colleagues, shared coffee at breakfast, daily gossip, or simply exchanging professional experiences, and even coaching with our supervisors is often satisfying. When working remotely, we have to abandon this, we are generally on our own. There is a different way of communicating with colleagues, such as telephone, Skype or e-mails, but is this enough for us?

If you are the type of person who appreciates the presence of colleagues, then you are unlikely to find yourself in such a system of work. There is one more aspect – the remuneration we receive. It is paid for the results of the work, not the effort put into its execution. Sometimes a task may require many hours of work, and the result will not be commensurate with it. This happens especially when the employee receives an order that does not suit his / her predispositions.

What effect remote work can have on our body and mind

There is one more fact that we should discuss, which is how our body and mind can be affected by remote work from the comfort of our homes. In the standard arrangement, i.e. “analogue” work, every day, regardless of the weather, day of the week or time of year, our alarm clock brutally told us that it was time to get up, get dressed and rush to work. Full readiness of the body, adrenaline rush is something that has been our everyday life and mobilization to exercise, especially physical. Now, when you have the opportunity to stay at home, the schedule of the day can be completely changed, because we are in no rush! We can work longer if we broke something during the day, the effect may be that instead of 8 hours we will be at work all day.

The body deprived of movement and effort during the day begins to behave differently, it becomes sluggish, flabby, and devoid of energy. It will probably have a similar effect on our psyche. Deprived of daily contact with co-workers, superiors or simply passing people on the street, we can feel irritated and frustrated, which in extreme conditions can lead to depression.

Summing up, it seems that remote work has many advantages, but unfortunately also disadvantages, it is up to you and your employer to choose the work system you choose, work in home or office mode, and maybe the best solution would be a hybrid option, i.e. a combination of both of the above.