Work from home- Benefits vs challenges

  As it is rightly quoted “Life is a roller coaster. It has its ups and downs. But it’s your choice to scream or enjoy the ride”.

This goes so true for someone who left working in the corporate and decided to work from home to strike a balance between family and professional life. The idea to still be able to do what you wished to accomplish in life; even though the situation changed when, the tiny little feet came into existence. The craving to do and be what you want to be has motivated me to join back the professional path but the limitations have always taken me double steps back. But as technology developed, an increasing number of organizations did discover the advantages of allowing their teams to work from home. Management's worries about communication, productivity and coordination have been dismissed by the arrival of tools such as videoconferencing and data sharing. With the option to work from home with the flexible schedule came my way also and I decided to move ahead. But it is easier said than done; done and fulfill as per the need of the hour.

According to the American Community Survey, 5.8 million or 4.3 percent of the U.S. workforce worked the majority of the week at home in 2010. And these trends are on the rise all over the world. There are benefits for both the employees and the employers to choose to work from home scenario. The positives for employers are saving on a work space and other facilities cost as well as ability to locate the workforce near the client side than the office. Whereas the benefits an employee seeks out of it are many. You get a chance to mould your career while nurturing your family. It enables in meeting self actualization goals, the aspirations of an individual. Being employed brings about a sense of independence as one becomes an earning member. Continuity in your work space brings about a progression in your career graph. Also, in today’s times with the help of the digital platforms, it is really easy to make new contacts, social and professional networking. And believeme it is true “ Out of sight, out of mind”, you stay away from office politics :). One doesn’t need to travel and waste hours on the road, shuttling between places. Above all, one can maintain a better work life balance and well being. But we cannot side line the challenges that are faced to accomplish these “work from home” hours at work. There are many parameters that I have faced myself and have disciplined around to create that balance. Some pre dominant challenges are:

Loneliness- To work alone without the peer around… the feeling of loneliness creeps in. The key element missing in the schedule is the social contact. There have been days that you feel so lonely and not motivated. It is the power of human around that motivates you to move on. As said the ions get charged up with the ions around. Similarly people get charged when people are  around them.

The solution to this is to plan internal meetings during the week with the co-workers, catch up for a cup of coffee with official friends. Moving out of the house does optimize our energy levels.

Work Distractions- this predominantly means separating the work from the household chorus. Every time I sit on my system either an unanswered door bell or some pending house activity calls out loud to divert attention.

The solutions to this are two ways. First you have a designated part in your house as your office work space. This make you cautious that you are sitting for your official work so some could be particular decorum need to be met. Also, as it is physically away from the household activities, you tend to forget about the mundane homely stuff as you get more engrossed in work. The second possible way is to assign fixed timing for your office work and household. The more you tend to follow the time pattern, the more discipline follows in the work and the productivity rises.

Official Outlook- Our body language, our attitude and our outlook; all are related to our dressing up. The way we are dressed up, it changes are way and style of working.

The solution to get this habit in practice is to have regular video calls, Skype calls with your team members rather than just telephonic interactions. This will make it a point that before we login, we are officially dressed.

Poor Internet connectivity- Earlier we never had stable internet connections. If connections were stable with good internet speed, then the blame game leads it to the electricity supply. I have faced such situations where in the day performance used to decline drastically due to the internet connectivity.

The solution to this is to check all possible loop holes for a stable, 100%error proof internet connectivity.

Children- A working lady chooses to stay back and work from home when the bundle of joy enters her life-her children. The problem that she faces is from the toddler stage to primary stage. Children come back early from school. They have equal number of holidays as they have school days. They need their mothers’ attention when they fall sick, when they need to study and even their hobby classes. This results in a diverted attention of the person who is trying to work.

The best ways to administer these issues is to either keep help at home or choose an option of day care without feeling guilty. 2 hours of you giving dedicated time to work will help you give them unhindered time to family. 

If we can master the challenges we really can churn out the benefits of Work from Home. So people who still face these challenges, go ahead and master them now. All the best!