Remote work is similar to working from home. This includes freelancing or work for hire, allowing the performance of duties at home or in any location outside the office. In the second case, the format of remote work can be both one-time or regular. Furthermore, lots of companies choose a distributed team (people working from two or more geographical locations), forming a list of tasks for workers of various branches of their organization.

As a result of the rapid development of the IT sector, fueled by COVID restrictions, the list of remote professions is growing rapidly. In addition to the usual copywriters and IT specialists, new online professions appear almost daily, such as online training specialists, social media promotion managers, international SEO services, online banking managers, etc. Most of the world’s leading companies accept and even encourage remote work.

What are the Advantages of Remote Work for Employees?

Firstly, the main benefit of remote work is the lack of strict control. Indeed, there is also a principled guideline requiring the installation of programs on personal computers that track the actions of an employee using screenshots. But in fairness, it can be noted that these measures are relatively extreme and rare.

Much more often, the attention of the authorities is directed to the quality and compliance with deadlines, which gives freedom in prioritization and time management.

As a consequence, there is another advantage of remote work – a flexible timetable. In addition to freedom in the distribution of tasks during the working daytime, many remote employees have the opportunity to select the active time of day. Exceptions are employment that involves communication with other people, for example, an HR manager.

What Advantages of Remote Work the Employers Get?

Here, the primary and essential benefit of remote work is the lack of geographical boundaries. An employer can choose people from any country and any nationality without the need for subsequent relocation. This factor expands the likelihood of hiring the most qualified worker without compromise and regardless of the candidate’s country of residence.

When choosing a team for a remote position, the employer is more likely to find a conscientious and responsible performer who appreciates the opportunity not to visit the office and thereby saves material and time resources.

Important Aspects of Organizing Remote Work with Maximum Efficiency

Helpful tips for employers:

• trust people, but be ready to quickly replace those who did not live up to expectations;
• clearly formulate the tasks and goals of the company to people, thereby improving the level of cohesion and understanding of the common cause;
• in order to minimize misunderstanding on the part of subordinates, it is recommended to develop clear instructions with requirements and tasks that do not require much time to read;
• pay due attention to monitoring the effectiveness of the work of specialists, taking into account financial and time indicators.

Valuable tips for employees:

• pay due attention to self-discipline skills aimed at improving key performance indicators;
• organize your workplace, making it as comfortable and functional as possible;
• plan your time, not forgetting to respect someone else’s time;
• don’t forget to rest on time, build in breaks when planning your working day – this will help you recuperate after complex tasks and increase efficiency.

Disadvantages of Remote Work

Remote work is not without its drawbacks. Some of them are temporary or can be solved, some will have to come to terms with them.

Lack of live communication with colleagues. Communication in work chats can be warm, but emoticons and postcards will not replace friendly hugs when congratulating you on your birthday or labor victories. This disadvantage is leveled by communication with friends, and meetings with relatives, for which you have more time. If the work team lives in the same city, you can arrange informal meetings – this will help you get to know your colleagues better and improve mutual understanding.

Misunderstanding relatives. From the outside, telecommuting is often seen as easier than working in an office. It seems to many that if a person is at home, then he has a lot of free time. It happens that household members are annoyed by a relative who “stays at home” all day and cannot clean or cook dinner.

We offer to calmly talk with loved ones without judging their point of view. Tell them in more detail what you are doing while they are working at their standard workplace. Perhaps, during the conversation, you will realize that you are really processing to the detriment of communication with your family. Then it is worth reviewing and adjusting your work schedule.

The need for self-organization skills. When you work on the Internet, there is a great temptation to do something more pleasant instead of immediate duties: watch a series, get stuck in social networks, start cleaning.

In the fight against procrastination, the correct organization of space helps. Remove all unnecessary from the workplace, agree with loved ones that at certain hours you cannot be distracted even for a minute, isolate yourself from distracting sounds – use headphones, and do not turn on the TV and radio if they distract you.

Lots of distractions. Cleaning up after a cat, picking up a child from school, knocking on the battery of a music lover neighbor – all this takes a little time individually, but in the aggregate, it can greatly affect the work schedule and mood. You will be much more productive if you ensure that you can work continuously and have scheduled breaks.

How to Go Remote

Suitable vacancies will be found for those who are engaged in intellectual activities, for office workers, and for those who do not have special skills.

How to switch to remote work by profession. You can switch to a remote format at your previous place of work. Any profession that does not require a physical presence next to the object of labor can go into the category of remote ones. An accountant, lawyer, sales manager, designer, programmer, teacher, tutor, or psychologist can easily perform their duties remotely. With the advent of telemedicine, even a doctor can carry out part of the work remotely: decipher tests, give advice, and monitor the patient’s condition.

If your presence in the office is not required, you can perform your functions from home. The main thing is to properly equip the workplace and get the necessary access. Talk to your superiors and describe the benefits that the company will receive from such a format of cooperation with you. Perhaps the company will no longer need to rent a room, and household expenses will decrease.

How to switch to remote work if the profession does not allow it. If your job responsibilities require a presence in the office, but you want to work remotely, you can retrain. Learning a new profession in online courses and submitting a lawyer, programmer or CFO resume, even to companies that are not in your city, is not as difficult as it seems at first glance

The number of remote job opportunities in 2022 increased by 57% compared to the end of last year. If earlier only special groups of the population were transferred to remote work, and then with reluctance, now anyone can work from home.

Remote work with the right approach and organization means more freedom, less stress, saving time and money. And sometimes, this is the only opportunity to get into the dream team because for this, you do not need to leave your hometown for the capital or another country.