Main challenges of remote work

Among the main challenges of remote work are those related to time management, communication, and security.

Being away from the office has many advantages. Being able to organize your schedules better, avoids wasting time in traffic and being able to spend more hours with your family. But, as not everything is a sea of roses, there are also difficulties in this change. The question is: do you know what the main challenges of remote work are?

Maybe it's team integration. We could, consider that they are internal conflicts. There are still those who think that the biggest difficulty is concentration and productivity. All this is right. After all, your obstacles may be different from those faced by someone else. Even so, there are challenges common to most professionals who work remotely.

?

I. Difficulty disconnecting

We start with one of the biggest problems of the home office: the difficulty of disconnecting. When you live and work in the same place, it's normal to get into a routine where you're available 24 hours a day. As you may already know, this is not healthy at all.

Working many more hours than necessary may seem normal and even useful at first, but it is a reality that cannot persist. That's why it's important to separate your personal from your professional life. In fact, this is the second point to improve remote work, according to a survey. The survey showed that 28.6% want to implement flexible working hours to ensure a balance between the two fronts of the employee's life.

According to the interviews carried out, 54% of the respondents feel the work overload. In addition, 39% feel exhaustion. In turn, a USP survey showed that working hours increased by 65% when working from home.

The solution, according to the study, is hybrid work.

In the Microsoft study, it is presented as the new great disruption. The idea is simple: who wants to go back to the office, goes back. Those who want to work at home, in the cafe and in coworking, for example, can also do that.

This flexibility encourages talent and helps create opportunities. In addition, the possibility of working from anywhere allows you to divide your time between your personal and professional life.

This is because the employee can choose a coworking space to work. These places often inspire professionals because they have a specific design and layout to optimize concentration. From the moment that the person leaves there, he can disconnect from the corporate environment.

?

II. Inefficient communication

In the midst of a pandemic, teams had to learn to work remotely. Communication tools have become even more useful, but not everyone has adjusted. Many professionals have experienced endless and meaningless meetings.

Other unproductive situations were also observed, which were hampered by inefficient communication. The point is that this factor depends more on individual efforts than on communication tools. Why? Well, it is normal to have difficulties in interpretation. With team members far from each other, any misunderstanding can lead to unnecessary internal conflict. As a consequence, there are losses to the productivity of the team.

?

In this case, hybrid work contributes by predicting that some actions and meetings will be held in person at the office. It all depends on the team's demand. It is even possible that part of the team is in the same environment and other employees participate remotely.

I. Time Management

This is one of the main challenges of remote work. It's easy to get distracted outside the office, especially if you're staying at home. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt strategies to focus.

?

An alternative is to use software to time each activity. This is a way to understand how your hours are spent and review your habits. Time management is also made easier with hybrid work. In this case, you have flexible hours and can better manage your activities. Also, it's worth building a schedule and sticking to it so everyone on the team knows when you'll be available.

?

II. Loneliness

Working remotely can be quite lonely and it takes a toll on mental health. The aforementioned USP survey showed that work overload is focused on women. Therefore, it was verified that:

40.5% feel symptoms of depression;

34.9% have anxiety;

37.3% suffer from stress.

These results are not just derived from loneliness, but that is one of the factors. So it pays to be able to work from anywhere. In a coworking space, for example, you see people, talk to them and interact. This helps with creativity and even productivity. In the hybrid work model, flexibility allows each professional to choose what they prefer. For example, you can work in person at the office only a few days a week to have maximum balance.

?

III. Low motivation and productivity

Loneliness and the feeling of isolation impact motivation to work and, consequently, productivity. At first, it may be interesting to stop meeting co-workers. Over time, the need to interact is greater. That's what the Microsoft study shows. Senior principal investigator, Dr. Nancy Baym said that “when you lose connections, you stop innovating. It’s harder to come up with new ideas and groupthink is a serious possibility.”

?

Other factors that impact motivation and productivity are difficulty in career development and promotion. Therefore, this is one of the main challenges of remote work. After all, everyone wants to be able to earn more and have recognition, right?

?

With hybrid work, this situation can be resolved. In a few days, he'll be at the office to show what he does and what the results are, in addition to getting feedback to improve. In others, you will have a coworking structure at your disposal to do what is necessary. Thus, you will need to dress and have a routine as if you were going to the office, with the difference of having a greater concentration. This tends to improve their performance and lead to increased appreciation by managers.

?

IV. FOMO sensation

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a real sensation that affronts those who work remotely. It appears in simple situations, like that happy hour in which you didn't receive an invitation or the party for the birthdays of the month you stopped participating.

In other words, FOMO means having the feeling that you are not part of that circle of people. This interferes with motivation, engagement with the company and even productivity.

This perception diminishes with hybrid work. As you go to the office in some situations and are part of a group when participating in a coworking, for example, you fail to consider these events so important. Even because there is interaction with other people.

V. Information Security

The last of the main challenges of remote work is information security. Acting remotely, you need to be even more careful with possible malicious intrusions to your computer. Otherwise, the company may incur large losses. These claims are confirmed by numbers. The home office is one of the main targets for hackers in 2021. The reason is easier access to corporate information, which tends to be more valuable.

?

This also made the total of attacks in 2020 significant. Between January and September of that year, more than 3.4 billion malicious intrusions were recorded. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention. Even offering face-to-face training makes a big difference. In this case, hybrid work contributes to security verification, training promotion and strengthening of security strategies. Including, focusing on what determines the General Data Protection Law (LGPD). You still need to be very careful with shadow IT. This term designates the use of devices and software without knowledge of the IT sector or outside of good information security practices. This can lead to a number of issues, including organizational data leakage.

In short, when working from a distance, you will have to face some obstacles. In addition to these main ones, there are others. But all can be overcome with an adequate structure and the hybrid work model.

?

?

Source : blog.beerorcoffee.com