Instead of commuting to your job every day, you might look at the option of having your job come to you.
Telecommuting is a work arrangement in which an employee’s work week is divided between the office and home or another remote location. Most often people telecommute one day out of a five day work week. Successful telecommuting programs are often found in companies and jobs that are based on results and have workers who do not need constant supervision. Technology has made collaboration easier for employees who aren’t physically in the same space, and companies who back telework say it has helped cut costs and compete for wider talent pools. Ten years ago, it was seen more as an employee benefit. Today, businesses around the world are seeing telework as a necessity.
Advantages of Telecommuting:
1. No Commuting- Depending on your current commute, this can save you anywhere from minutes to hours every day, which you can spend doing things you enjoy.
2. Increased Independence- Working from home puts the onus on you to complete your work without constant reminders, which some people absolutely love.
3. Increased Savings- Most people who work from home are able to save on their taxes each year because of the tax-deductible expenses associated with working from home.
4. More Flexibility- This depends on the type of job you’ll have at home, but many work-from-home jobs allow for a flexible schedule.
5. Fewer sick days- Working in a traditional office exposes you to many people’s germs, but if you work from home, you have less exposure to people, and therefore, to their germs.
Disadvantages of Telecommuting:
1. Decreased human interaction- If you’re the sort of person who thrives on interactions with other people, working from home can feel isolating. It’s possible to remedy this feeling with e-mail, phone calls, instant messaging, and video conferencing, but it’s no substitute for face-to-face interaction.
2. Blurring Work and Personal Life- When you work from home, you can’t always shut out your personal life while you’re working, or turn off your work life while you’re “off the clock.”
3. Difficulty Demonstrating Workload- If you’re a telecommuter working for a company with a traditional office, your office-bound coworkers might perceive you as doing less work simply because you’re at home. It’s important to showcase your workload to demonstrate to managers and coworkers that you are accomplishing as much, if not more, as you would if you were in a cubicle down the hall.
Every job arrangement, whether in a traditional office, a home office, or somewhere in between, has its pros and cons. We want people to find amazing jobs and professional satisfaction, whether they work in an office or work from home. If you’re thinking about telecommuting, it’s important to analyze yourself to determine if the disadvantages of telecommuting are worth it for you; you must decide if working from home is the right arrangement for your personal work and personal life.
Not every task is particularly well-suited to the home office. A Results-Only Work Environment only makes sense for the subset of relatively solitary tasks where results can easily be tracked and measured and those where stuff can get done with relatively little face-to-face interaction.
Yet for the right job—one that can be done in fits and starts, and the results easily monitored and evaluated from afar—the advent of mobile computing does have the power to transform the workplace.
Perhaps we’re not witnessing the end of 9-to-5. But the age of flex-time may indeed say that remote working is better and with more and more remote workers finding that telecommuting is a healthier way to work, it’s very easy to see that telecommuting will soon become the norm (and not the exception) of how people work in the future.