Why Working From Home doesn’t always Work?
On the face of it, working from home has its obvious charms. It promises flexible working hours, a non-existent dress code and freedom from long travelling hours, amongst other benefits.
However, the option may not always be as rosy as it looks. It was after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer decided to end the company’s work from home policies, that the entire debate on the pros and cons of working from home sparked up.
A research in Psychological Science in the Public Interest found that working from home can be beneficial to employees and employers—but only in small doses. If put to practice for a prolonged period of time, working from home can have many negative effects on both professional and personal fronts.
Here’s listing top reasons why working from home doesn’t work and ways to mitigate them:
Environment at home not always conducive for work
While working from home, setting up a desk somewhere outside your bedroom, and away from distractions such as television may not be as easy as it sounds. It certainly takes a lot of dedication, self-control and discipline to motivate yourself to persevere in working at home over the long run without succumbing to the distractions and losing momentum.
More often than not, working from home translates to answering doorbells, phone calls and daily chores which highly affects productivity. So, the very first step towards working from home is to maintain a dedicated area of work which is free of distractions.
Schedule often tends to be disrupted
Working from home comes with great incentives, and one the most appealing amongst them is the idea of setting your own work hours, but even this aspect comes with a disclaimer. As with most things, operating without any structure leads to loss of focus, and hurts productivity in the long run.
The working hours will become a blur, and sometimes if you are not careful, you’ll find yourself working 7 days a week just to catch up with all the time you’ve lost. Setting a specific time for work, and sticking to it not only helps you with your work, but also helps to free up time for your family, friends and yourself.
The trick to pull this off is to set proper working hours for yourself, and assign deadlines to tasks at hand. Try to avoid non-work phone calls or interaction with family and friends at this time. This will not only help with productivity, but help increase the quality of work too
Communication with Team is often a challenge
The work from home environment has certain challenges that are necessary to be overcome, one of the most important amongst them is to maintain constant and healthy communication with your team. In an environment, which can make you feel isolated, and draw you closer to your personal life than your professional, staying in constant touch with your co-workers can help your mind stay in the work zone, and help you focus better.
Today’s digital world provides hundreds of ways to communicate such as phone calls, texts, Facetime, email, Skype, Google+, social media, mail and the list goes on. Being comfortable using these multiple modes of communication to connect with others in a way that fits you and your team’s requirements can be a great asset.
The bottom line
Working from home day in and day out can make it difficult to focus on work, and lead to an eventual loss in productivity. The best trick to avoid this is to mix things up, and occasionally indulge in interacting with other people while you work.
Coworking spaces provide the best solution for such a situation. At times when you feel saturated, and bored of working at your living room desk, the best thing you can do for yourself, is to put your work machine in your bag and head out for a place that is full of vibrant and energetic people. Coworking spaces provide an instant boost by helping you feed of the energy that such a dynamic environment emanates, helping you regain focus, and maintain high levels of productivity.
I’ve been into the online marketing since decades and have never been a fan of working from home. The environment is a major factor and it can be a game changer for sure. 🙂
Your blog is wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!