The pros and cons of remote work

Working from home is no longer a luxury afforded only to a few highly sought after individuals. Many workers across varied industries are beginning to ditch the daily commute for remote offices.

I have worked from a home office for a couple of years as a full-stack developer. During that time I have seen more good than bad from it. But it is still not for everyone, and still not for every role in a company. Having said that, its the single greatest benefit to my work.

The Pros to the Company:

• Talent - When you can hire a worker in any city in the world, you have a much larger pool of talent to choose from. With the larger pool it stands to reason you can find the person with the right skills who is the right fit for your company.
• Productive time - Remote workers are rarely late, and almost never call out because of a minor cold or illness. When they do work sick, they don't infect your whole office.
• Office expenses - One less desk, parking space, etc. taken up. Less facilities equals lower costs.
• Accountability - If you hire the right people, you actually have greater accountability with remote workers. Most of their communication is in written form, giving you clearer documentation of requirements, expectations, and performance. In addition, people who love working remotely are extremely cautious to avoid even the appearance that they do less work. For that reason, most of us do more than we would in an office.

The Pros for the Employee:

• Travel - Live anywhere you want, for as long as you want, as long as you have internet. As long as your work is good, and you put in the time, most employers could care less.

• Control - You'll miss out on sharing a refrigerator, open floor plan noises, thermostat wars, dress codes, office politics, and sharing a restroom.
• The commute - Though I have only experienced courteous and thoughtful drivers, I am told that commuting can be stressful for other people. Then there is the price of gas, tires, oil changes, etc.
• Time - Just the time you gain from not commuting is significant. If you are the kind of person who can balance home and work life (from home) this is a huge plus. In addition, by not taking hour lunches everyday and starting earlier you can usually bank some comp time for those pesky doctors appointments, or picking up the kids after school. Just watch your productivity, so the boss doesn't have to.

The Cons for the Employee:

Don't kid yourself, it's not always easy.

• Isolation - Not being in the office can leave you out of a lot of conversations, and even cause some of your coworkers to forget that you are on their team. In addition, if you are a social person, you'll have to find other ways to have this human contact.
• Meetings - You will not have fewer meetings working from home. Some days it feels like you are in constant conference calls. This can leave the time available for productivity a little stretched.
• Time - Yeah, I know, I listed it as a pro. But if you are not the kind of person who manages his or her time carefully, you can easily end up working way more hours than you would if you went in at 8 and left at 5. Balance is important and the skill is not easily mastered by everyone. If you can't do this, don't even think about working remotely.

The Cons to the Employer:

• Management learning curve - Managing remote workers may require new habits, new tools, and new skills for front-line managers. Holding people accountable is different when using video conferencing, Skype, Slack, MS Teams, Jira (or other project management tools). These tools are fantastic, in my experience. But teaching an old manager a new trick might take time and patience. Remember that many of these people have high degrees which are a few years older than Slack. Building trust in a new system can be difficult. By extension, trust in remote workers who use that system can take time also.
• Team dynamic - When workers have been in the same office a long time, the 'new guy' can feel a little isolated. This is exaggerated when the worker is remote. It is paramount that as part of the on-boarding process, you introduce these players to one another so that they know who to contact for support, and they feel comfortable doing so.
• Potential for abuse - If I didn't list it here, I know I'd get emails. Of course there are people who try to do as little as possible and are bad employees. The question I would ask is: would you hire these people to work in your office?