That being said there are certain advantages and disadvantages to this concept, the advantages/pros being
- You get to stay close to your family
- You get the opportunity to create a more comfortable environment while working
- You might get a quieter space to work in
- You might save on commuting costs if your office is at a distant location.
- You get more freedom and independence to work the way you like to work.
- You get more flexibility concerning your work times.
Like all things it also has its disadvantages/cons
- Segregation: Every space is designed with a specific purpose in mind, a home is designed for leisure, resting, private time, and family time and not necessarily for work purposes. It’s hard for many people to keep their work and private time separate and end up mixing the two, which massively affects their work performance. Not being able to set boundaries can create a disproportionate work-life balance.
- Productivity: Since our home environment is comfortable and cosy it’s very natural to get lazy and sleepy, pushing down your work speed and output, making you less focused and thereby affecting your overall productivity.
- Cost of a home set-up: We all know that the furniture and lighting set-up design for a home is for comfort and leisure, naturally making you lazy and complacent. To avoid this, you will have to invest in a good quality comfortable workstation set-up, which is by no means cheap and not all companies have the budget to invest in such set-ups for their employees and not to mention the space constraints as well.
- Family: We all love to have our family, kids, and siblings around us but let’s be honest, not at the time of work. It’s difficult to keep family interferences at bay while you are busy working and not to mention being visited by guests at the wrong time or your maid trying to mop or broom under your chair while one is trying to keep a straight face on the zoom calls.
- Infrastructure: If you think just having a fancy and expensive set-up will help you get the job done let me mention a few more points to keep in mind like power backups, if like me you are from Pune where there is so much load shedding it is hard to predict the reliability of the electricity situation not to mention how expensive it is to set up inverters or generators to give power back-ups for longer hours, the space design needs to be more work-focused, charging points may not be many for professional use, and our homes may not have many open spaces to move about, the choice of seatings are also limited.
- Social interactions: It is simple we humans are social animals and are not meant to be alone, this concept of lone wolf does not work in reality for a long time, during Covid, we had no choice but now we do. So many people suffer from loneliness, isolation, and anxiety due to working independently. Interactions with like-minded people, colleagues, and friends are necessary for your personal and work productivity to stay balanced.
- Overworking: We need to have a login–logout time just like we have in our offices. In the case of WFH, we tend to exceed our log-out time and overwork which may increase stress and burn-out. When we are in an office setting it’s easier as we physically leave the space, end our work and go home but the same cannot happen in WFH. Boundaries: According to a study for many people setting boundaries for their professional and personal life is important for their work performance and mental health. They can be physical and tangible or emotional and intangible, helping us preserve our physical and emotional energy which in turn helps us stay focused at the task at hand. Having boundaries can help you set aside equal time for yourself and your family thereby promoting work-life balance that is otherwise extremely difficult to set in case of WFH. With boundaries everyone is able to clearly define priorities and function more effectively, but without boundaries it genuinely becomes difficult to manage and balance professional and personal behaviour.
Psychologically speaking we need to create that on-and-off situation for your work. People often tend to work in their bedrooms on their beds, drastically affecting their sleep cycles.
All in all, with added advantages there are also many disadvantages to WFH. We have so many clients who have not had great WFH experiences and many of them believe that although it seems easy and convenient, WFH is more tidious and stress full than working from a professional office space due to the added challenges it has attached to it.
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