The landscape of work has dramatically transformed with the advent of the internet. Gone are the days when the concept of work was tied to a physical location. The modern era has ushered in a newfound appreciation for remote working. This shift is not just a temporary adjustment but a glimpse into the future of work. In fact, experts predict that remote working will compete with office locations by 2025. Survey reveals that 66% of the respondents confirmed how their productivity improved working outside of the office and 76% said there are fewer distractions working from home. It’s time to delve into the reasons why working from home is more than a convenience—it’s a strategic advantage.
Here are just a few reasons as to why we think this should be the case.
Balancing work and personal life from home
So I’m going to be honest here, organization is something I struggle with. It takes a conscious effort for me to stay organized. I know for some folks it comes naturally, and for some others…well, you are like me. And I don’t necessarily just mean in terms of keeping your desk neat and tidy- I mean with life.
What does this all have to do with working from home? Well let’s face facts: it’s easier to do things when everything is in one place. Being able to walk across your house or into the next room of your apartment, sit down, and bang out whatever work you have to do is infinitely easier than having to have all of your working materials at…well, work.
Plus, now that it’s 2020, there are plenty of ways for you to actually make working from home work for you. As we said above, before the advent of the internet this would have been basically impossible. But now, companies have moved forward; the advent of telephony services like MightyCall make it possible to essentially conduct all of your business from afar, without losing any of the ability to work you would have otherwise had if you were at your office.
Saving time: the hidden benefit of home offices
So there’s something else about working from home which is not often talked about, at least not by your boss (or, if you are your own boss, it’s something you may not even admit to yourself): working from home is just…easier. And it’s not lazy to admit that! It just IS easier. For example, here’s how the normal 9 to 5 job works: you wake up at 7:30, sleep your way through breakfast, drive to work, and then sit at your desk for 8 hours.
You might not actually need to be there for all 8 hours—I think anyone who has worked in an office can tell you that you definitely don’t need to be there for all of those 8 hours—but you have to be there nonetheless. Then, you’ll drive home, cook dinner, and watch a show or read a book for a bit before going home. If you have any social events during the week, they’re usually crushed in and guarantee you can’t get any chores done, meaning that you’ll get to spend one of two weekend days cleaning your toilets. If you have kids, it means that for a majority of the week, you won’t get to see them.
Here’s working from home: get up at 8, 8:30, casually eat your breakfast. Start working from your other room (or heck, your bedroom) at 9, work for a couple hours, then take a long lunch break without your boss tapping his or her foot waiting for you to come back. Take the time to eat, do a chore, walk the dog; then resume working for a bit more, finish the, say, six hours of work you had, and then you’re done by 3 without having to drive home. Greet your kids for the school bus, and have a nice, longer, and fun night.
What working from home can do is free you from the rigid routine of 9 to 5. With companies that allow you to work from home, and software which lets you take advantage of being allowed to work from home, you actually can break free of the same rules which governed your great grandparents when they were working.
Improving the business strategy with efficiency
This one is frankly, self-evident: no one likes commuting. Even if you do not live on the horror show that is Interstate 405 in by Los Angeles (the one that you always see on the news, profusely clogged with traffic), commuting can still be just…un-fun. Even if your city has effective public transport, unless you happen to live near where you work, you’ll still spend a decent chunk of time commuting to work; the average American spends about 26 minutes. There and back, you’re closing in on nearly an hour of travel.
But when you work from home, your commute is about thirty seconds, depending on how far your work station is from your bed. Plus, as we mentioned above, you can take breaks more easily and aren’t forced to just sit at a desk to please your corporate overlords- so that means when you go outside, it’s because you want to, not because you’re expected to.
Understanding the financial benefits of working remotely
Americans spend thousands upon thousands of dollars a year commuting to work. That’s a huge chunk of cash! That’s a couple of nice vacations. That’s money that can go to loans, or fixing your roof, or toward a car payment, or can just sit in your wallet instead of going straight into your car’s gas tank.
When you work from home, that massive chunk of change disappears entirely. And you’ll probably end up even saving more: think of all the times you didn’t have time to pack lunch, so you bought something from the cafeteria in your building or ran to the restaurant down the block during your break. All the times you put a couple quarters into the vending machine. That stuff *adds up!*
Meanwhile, working from home barely costs you anything. A business phone system from MightyCall, for example, can cost as cheap as only $19.99 a month! Math was never my strongest of subjects but even I can tell that that’s a heck of a lot cheaper than a couple grand a year in gas alone.
Improving business operations from home
What you have probably picked up at this point is that the current system we have of working is…just not optimal. It is severely lacking. It’s far too expensive, eats up time, and just overall makes no sense whatsoever.
When you work from home, those issues disappear, and you can truly optimize your business from top to bottom. No longer being constrained by physical locations is everything- and with a phone system like MightyCall’s, which effectively turns any internet-connected device into a phone, your opportunities will grow massively. Tired of working in only your house? Spend the day in your local coffeeshop, making calls and great deals over their wi-fi. Need to meet with your colleagues? Hire out a temporary co-working space where you can all get together and share ideas and plans of attack.
Plus, if you are not constrained by physical locations, your employees, don’t have to be either. In the past, if the best possible employee you could hire worked three hours away, that hire wouldn’t have worked out. But transitioning your business away from the 20th-century physical model means essentially that you no longer have to worry about hiring second best. Geographic restraints are a thing of the past.
It’s time to try and work from home
The work environment as we know it has evolved. The embrace of remote working isn’t just a necessity borne out of a crisis; it’s a revelation of a more efficient, balanced, and satisfying way of conducting business. Companies and employees are discovering the profound benefits of this shift, from financial savings to enhanced productivity. It’s clear that the traditional 9 to 5 work model is undergoing a fundamental transformation, and working from home is at the forefront of this change.
