The side effects of work from home culture

With the outbreak of the Corona Virus, many companies opted for ‘Work From Home’ as a solution for their work progress. To be a successful remote worker, one must have relentless perseverance and dedication towards work.

Shifting from the traditional office to remote working is not an easy transformation. It involves a lot of challenges and adaptation skills to completely get on with a new environment. Though, remote working is safe for the current conditions of the COVID 19 pandemic; ‘work from home’ has its own darker side as well.

Impediments caused by remote working

Seating arrangement:

The primary thing that you need, in order to focus on your work, is a proper work environment. An employee with a middle-class background can’t easily afford a seating arrangement that could match his workplace seating.
At the least, you need a desk where you can place your laptop and an office chair to start working at home. Many people suffer from the lack of a desk at home and are have no option but to work hunched over coffee tables or on kitchen stools This would, in turn, affect the employee’s health and they may suffer from serious musculoskeletal conditions in the long run.

Lack of exercise

Remote working is going to drive you insane by locking you within the boundary of four walls. The only possible exercise for a busy worker who sits all day long in front of the monitor is his travel from home to his office. Remote working takes away the prospect of this exercise as well. Employees would literally become immobile with their eyes continuously gazing on the screens for hours. This will indeed pose a serious threat to their vision.

Network access

This is one of the greatest tech headaches of working from home. Not all employees can afford wifi routers in their homes. Most of them will have to depend on the mobile internet, which would generally not last longer than a couple of continuous hours. The common issue faced is that the network signal would slow down to almost non-existent; you’ll have to install all the new software tools in your PC which are confusing and your computer mouse would seem to be a piece of junk. Without an I.T. based system admin, you are now left on your own with your system’s technical problems.

Time management

Your home can never match your office. Working from home involves a lot of personal interruptions that would easily distract your focus from work. Basically you’ll end up starting your work in the early morning with a view of finishing it soon; but unfortunately, end-up working till late hours.
When you have an office routine, it’s easier to leave what you do at the workplace and resume it the next day. When you work from home, your office is where you live. So you often end up working without a break. More working hours with less outcome is generally the possible result of remote working. This is because you don’t strictly adhere to the timings when you are at home.

Frustrating virtual meets

Even though we have technologies like Google Meet, MS Teams, Cisco Webex, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts that facilitate us to conduct online conferences; their efficiency is significantly less than face to face meetings. Interrupted network connectivity, lack of eye contact, and technical dependencies tend to hinder the potential outcome of the meet.
Organizing even a small group of people for an online conclave requires the attendees to be familiar with the software that’s used to host the meeting. Facial expressions and body language reveal more details than the actual words. In the case of the virtual meet, these cues are either not notified or hidden.

For instance, When you have to discuss an architectural plan with your client, it is best to do so over a table. You won’t be able to explain with the same efficiency when it comes to an online conference.

Lack of physical interaction

For an organization that functions with multiple departments, an employee in a particular department may get his related doubts instantly clarified from a member of any other department. For example, a project manager working in the engineer’s cell can enter the drafting section and get the relevant details that he needs. Thereby, he can come over and resume his work with ease. This kind of immediate ‘interaction and response process’ is a major absence while working from home. This is because there is no fixed ‘common availability’ of workers.

Each employee works at different hours based on his own lifestyle. The person you are looking for may not be available when you need them the most. Though you have multiple options like Video calls, texts, IM, etc; they don’t make a difference if the damn person isn’t there on the other end. This kind of lack of community and differences in culture is the major drawback of remote working

Besides all these, ‘ Work From Home’ is extremely unreliable with no proper supervision of activities because a manager is not physically present to monitor your work progress. Moreover, team spirit is something that could only be achieved when employees work as a team; in real.

To sum up, one must never mix family and work together. Remote working emphasizes balancing family with the job; which indeed is not that easy. Managing both under a single roof would definitely affect the individual’s internal peace and would result in decreased work productivity. Though ‘work from home’ can be an effective temporary solution at times of emergency or pandemic; it cannot prove to be sustainable in the long run. You’ll eventually have to restore back to normal ensuring that you take all safety measures and precautions. Vsisitdesk would be of great help to take of your visitors and clients at the reception. To sign up click here

To read the article ‘corona-virus is the new normal’; click here