Covid-19 has forced us into a whole new way of working and living. Those jobs which are partially or fully relied on PC have shifted to the remote work model. The idea of dreaming of working in the cafe or simply bringing a laptop to sit beside the cafeteria while enjoying the beach view is realized. Perhaps people don't have to battle the heavy traffic before 9 am or after 5 pm amongst the crowd. A lot of us started to recognize the flexibility and freedom of remote work. Without realised, Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are considering cutting the cost of their monthly expenses for the office rental space.
As most tech jobs can be done remotely, companies also reconsider how does the work model looks like in upcoming years, how business performance can be measured remotely, and how employees collaborate in their daily communication without interference due to different timezone.
There are many pros to adopting the remote model.
1. Higher productivity
People who are working remotely tend to be more productive. Remote employees don't need to wake up early for morning preparation and head to heavy traffic. Instead, they can simply do washed-up, sip a coffee and press the PC "ON" button for spending their workdays. The energy for battling the traffic, commuting public transportation, and driving/riding vehicles to the office will be conserved for better use of productivity.
With enough rest and free time every day, employees can now be able to have a work-life balance for higher productivity and efficiency.
2. More freedom
The standard working hours are 8-to-4 or 9-to-5 a day. Employees especially those who are sitting all day in front of a PC screen might feel exhausted and have eye pain. They don't dare to take nap during office hours as they worried the boss thought they are simply lazy and unproductive. As a result, the productivity level is indeed reducing especially since the company culture is focused on monitoring staff attendance on PC.
Having a nap time of fewer than 20 minutes will allow you to wake up feeling refreshed, energized, and alert. Any point of a stuck moment is easy to be solved.
3. Decreased business and infrastructure costs
Because fewer employees utilized the business daily expenses such as stationery, electricity, rental space, and fixed assets such as office tables and chairs. The businesses can reduce their expenses by accommodating smaller space and pantry needs. For a service business, management can also offer 24 hours chat support as most employees can be hired all around the world with different timezones.
4. More time with family
Even though standard working hours are 8 hours a day but some employees especially with heavy workloads have to spend overtime (OT) to finish the job on time. This has not considered the time taken for commuting public transportation and traffic congestion. Time taken to accompany the loved one will be lesser or not even have a personal interaction with children. With remote work, people can spend their time indoors while observing children's growing stage. Or at least have small talk with partners who can give better solutions to improve the work.