Benefits of Remote Work Outweigh the Challenges

Once in a while, we see pushback to the remote work phenomenon.

Some people cite loneliness, but meetups and community events can overcome this. Others mention the stress of being “always-on” or “always connected,” which can be alleviated through effective work/life scheduling and setting reasonable availability expectations. There are a couple of other objections, but they can all be overcome and managed.

As tweeted by David Tabachnikov (@davidtab), Co-CEO at ScholarshipOwl,

Socializing: Work from a co-working space, have a flight budget, have offsites
Meetings: You don’t “need” meetings, and yet you can still have them.
Water cooler: Donut bot,
Collaborators: Figma, Docs, Zoom Screen Share, shared whiteboards
Can’t focus at home: Anticafe, Co-working

And a good point was made by an opinion blog post in The Globe And Mail:

“So is the answer to get rid of remote work and bring everyone back together to work harmoniously together? Well, no, for so many reasons. From having to build more office space to having more cars on the road every day, moving away from remote work could not happen without huge costs, many of them involving worker horror: As much as it may be lonely to work alone all the time, it is not clear that many remote workers really do pine for the opportunity to be in the office kitchen every day. What they do want, however, is to still feel that they are connected to their colleagues and part of a team. Creative companies are succeeding at this, whether through virtual weekly meetings or retreats, or just encouraging people to call and talk to each other rather than e-mailing and texting.”

We agree. 

You can learn more about how you can overcome these objections against remote teams by clicking here.