Being able to work remotely, from anywhere, anytime and anyway, was one of the reasons why I chose more than 17 years ago to work in the online field. The perspective was simple: whether you are part of a team or working on your project online, the field itself gives you the opportunity to be flexible and organize your schedule, space and tasks as you want.
Over time, in addition to the office work that everyone knows, I tried several types of remote work: from home, from my favorite coffee shop, from another city, from the countryside or even from a tropical island. In all these attempts, I have reached some conclusions that I will present below.
Advantages of remote work:
- Flexibility
In the field of digital marketing, flexibility is a word you come across often, and everyone in this field wants it. You could say that it is precisely the basis of digital marketing work when it comes to time, skills, knowledge and so on.
- Time gained
The fact that you no longer have to wake up an hour (or a lot) early every day to get ready to get to the office, but you can jump straight from your comfortable bed to the “office” after drinking your favorite coffee from home, is a major advantage.
- Less stress
This is where the fact that you no longer cross paths with the traffic in the city during rush hour (it depends on which city you work from, but at least in Cluj it’s the same as in Bucharest), but also the fact that you’re no longer at the center of the problems and hustle and bustle at the office is perfect, or at least worth experiencing for a while.
- Reduced expenses
You don’t travel that much, so you don’t use the car or public transport as often. At the same time, you don’t even eat out or ordered, when you have home-cooked food at hand.
- Freedom
The feeling of freedom comes from the perspective that you control your day and everything you will do throughout it.
- You can work from wherever you want
With a laptop and a stable internet connection, you can turn any place into an office where you can do your job with peace of mind.
- Become a digital nomad
You can visit new places, new countries or exotic destinations, where after the program you can enjoy the new location, go to the beach, discover new people, new cultures, experiences and much more. And after a while you can even go further on your journey.
The list could go on, however, like anything else, remote work also has a less positive side and brings some disadvantages. I’m going to list below the disadvantages I see in remote work.
Disadvantages of remote work:
- Flexibility is not unlimited
I had situations when I was constrained by deadlines, pressure from people in the team, from clients or other factors at work, when I had to be online even in addition to working hours or on days off.
The fact that you have flexibility while others have a fixed work schedule can make you get to work when others normally have free time or to do it even at night, when you need to do your tasks urgently.
- Discipline is everything
If you don’t have discipline in what you do, you risk creating more harm by working from home. Starting with the fact that you don’t respect a work schedule (you take a lot of breaks and end up working all day), continuing with the fact that you eat more, having the refrigerator close, and up to the lack of exercise and sedentary lifestyle, which occurs with the constant stay at home.
- Same workload and time
In my case, I work more sitting at home than when I go to the office, due to the fact that I no longer have interruptions (if there are no children in the area) and I immerse myself in tasks and projects. This happens either when you don’t organize yourself well, or when you like the field in which you work and thus always find something extra to do.
- A different type of stress intervenes
We encountered situations where, due to the fact that the team was not together at the same time, making decisions or solving extreme situations was more difficult and a lot of pressure was created that affected the entire team. Whether you’re in the office or at home, tasks still need to be done, whether you want to do something else.
- The connection with colleagues is deficient
The fact that you no longer share the same physical space with your office colleagues is a disadvantage that you feel especially over time. You start to see that you can no longer form the office relationships you once had, or you even end up not knowing and understanding your colleagues at all. Teambuildings or occasional coffee outings are events that help little, but they cannot determine the building of a strong and well-knit team.
- Lack of socialization
Depending on each of us, remote work can affect the way we interact and socialize with people, as we meet new people less and less. By simply going to the office and returning home, you get to interact with those in traffic or public transport, feel the pulse of the city and strengthen the connection with your colleagues. If you don’t do this, your degree of socialization can be intensely affected.
- Home becomes your office
Depending on how much space you have at home and how it is compartmentalized and arranged, you can end up working from the same place where you eat or sleep. If you manage to set up a dedicated room for working from home, then you can mentally switch between work hours and the rest of the day.
- Being a digital nomad comes with a lot of challenges
From my 3-month experience on “my” tropical island, I understood what the pluses are (heat, sunshine, new experiences, etc.), but also what the disadvantages are.
The time zone difference is a real challenge. The more you work 2-3 or 4 hours against your team, the greater your effort to synchronize and different problems arise.
It happens that you work from a position that seems comfortable, but after a while you feel pain in your back, hands, legs and you realize how much you miss the ergonomic office chair, adapted to you and to which your body has become accustomed.
On the other hand, the fact that the world around you is on vacation, and you “at the office” makes it very difficult to concentrate on tasks compared to how you do it in the traditional office. When the people around you are in relaxation mode and you are caught up in the problems and challenges of the office, you end up being “trapped in Tenerife”, as a client told me in a zoom meeting when he found out that I was working from there.
Bonus! Remote work with children around
This situation can only be understood by parents who have been through it and who have young children now. The advantages of being with your “little ones” for longer is undeniable, it’s exactly what I wanted all the time.
However, over time the disadvantages are shown. If you have occasional interruptions at the office, with the children you have interruptions all the time. A minor unresolved situation later becomes an emergency. Concentration becomes a luxury and you start to miss those times when you were at the office.
However, the conclusion I came to is that, like everything in life, “too much spoils”. A combination of office and remote work, depending on each individual, is the most appropriate option.
