Should you work from home after COVID?How to decide

As the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine increases and more people sign up for vaxx life every day, we finally let ourselves make a realistic plan that we only dreamed of a few months ago: life after the pandemic.

For many people, the biggest change is returning the slash to normal, which means going back to the office. In the meat.

But can we go back?

Those of us who have been home work Last spring, after the company sent workers home, the preachers saw the writing on the wall. We believe that once employees have tasted the good remote working life, it is difficult to convince them to return to the office five days a week.

And we are right. Although only 20% of employees who could complete work remotely worked from home before the coronavirus pandemic, 54% of employees expressed their desire to work from home after the COVID subsided. According to the Pew Research Center.

Should you work from home after COVID?

The pandemic experience may not be the best measure of whether you should work from home for a long time. This mandatory experiment is full of additional challenges and complexities that you would not normally encounter.

So, if the whole thing is new to you, and you are trying to determine whether you want to seek a long-term work-from-home arrangement, then here is the ultimate guide to solving the problem.

The pros and cons of working from home

advantage

• Not commuting: By 2020, the environmental benefits of fewer people on the road are obvious. (Does anyone else see the “year when the earth changes”?) The cancellation of commuting also means falling asleep, more family time, less risk of accidents, less car wear and tear, and cheaper gas bills.

• Accessibility: Offices can be filled with mines for the disabled or mentally ill. Working from home can bring convenience and comfort that an office doesn’t have, so everyone can do their best.

• More emphasis on in-depth work: to the opposite Popular myth, Employees tend to more Work at home, quite a lot. When you focus on writing monthly reports, you rarely have the opportunity to be distracted, such as eating cake in the break room, colleague comments or those team members who just ask “a quick question” and stop.

• More time with family and pets: Eliminate the commute and home time at lunchtime, and you can make room throughout the day for children to leave school, walk the dog, pet cats (or any charm of raising cats) and start eating dinner at a convenient time.

• No dress code: We only need about three hours of quarantine to become a mature sports pants country. A zero-honest person will be more comfortable wearing hard pants, but is complete physical comfort not good for your working day?

• Efficient meeting: Setting aside the technical difficulties (you already hope to overcome them), virtual meetings are often more efficient than face-to-face meetings because everyone disappears after the meeting is completed. After the meeting, people usually do not stay in the Zoom meeting room until the end of the meeting, but by sharing the latest story of the collapse of home decoration to run out of time until the next meeting.

• Work life flexibility: Make full use of long hours of deep work. You can usually find some pockets throughout the day for things that the office cannot take care of, such as washing clothes, washing dishes, exercising or walking.

• Avoid office bacteria: We are all staying at home to avoid COVID-19, but don’t forget that seasonal colds and gastrointestinal colds used to flow through the office and your family every few months. Avoiding colleagues who insist that you are “just allergic” can help you avoid getting sick and missing work.

• More cooking at home: the study From the PR and marketing consulting company Hunter It is said that 71% of people do more during the pandemic plan in order to stay healthy in their lives after COVID. Working from home can bring you home for breakfast and lunch and eliminate the hassle of commuting, because commuting may make it difficult for you to cook at home, not just a simple dinner.

Disadvantage

• chance: Spontaneous conversations in the lounge or desk can bring new ideas or innovations to the company. It is difficult to achieve these goals through virtual meetings.

• Ignore team members: You may notice that some employees are missing due to remote work. This may mean that they are focused and motivated, or it may mean that the entire team cannot see their ins and outs. If you are in a leadership role, you may inadvertently pay less attention to some remote team members than other remote team members, which may harm the entire team.

• No water cooler or elevator chat: Some employees hate talking about water coolers, but some are pleased with it. These quick moments are an important way to get to know your colleagues, and can increase your chances of having interpersonal conversations through chat applications or virtual meetings.

• Cooperation challenge: Sometimes you just want someone to sit next to you and pinpoint exactly what they need to accomplish their task on the screen. From a personal point of view, we naturally have the tools needed to accomplish this task, but from a remote point of view, you have to get used to-and get everyone involved-virtual tools to simplify it.

• Technical Difficulties: We have all heard of these stories (or experienced first-hand accounts)-“I didn’t know I was muted” folks and “and, my husband just rushed out of my Zoom frame” misfortune. Different levels of Internet connectivity between employees can also hinder communication, collaboration and productivity.

• Mixed signal: Our brain benefits from environmental cues that tell us to concentrate. Office desks and work areas can trigger your brain to focus on work more clearly. There is no built-in “working time” trigger at home, which is one of the reasons why some people get distracted when they work at home.

• There is no reason to leave home: How many of us don’t like to spend endless days in our own home, it’s not most An important lesson for 2020, but this is a lesson to be considered. Work is a way to leave the house and experience all kinds of scenery and excitement. Without this kind of stimulation, it is easy to raise your head and find that you have been staying in the same place on the sofa without talking to anyone for several days.

Warning: You can find ways to alleviate all these shortcomings and experience office-like benefits as a remote worker. But your company and culture must be taken seriously, so for some employees, these can become real obstacles.

Working from home is perfect for…

• Parents and people with pets want to be flexible during normal working hours.

• Commuters who commute for a long time, especially in inclement weather.

• Knowledge workers and creatives, they need time for in-depth work to process information and create their own works.

• Everyone likes sweatpants and leggings instead of suits and ties.

• Night owls may benefit from an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning and can work flexibly into the evening.

• Introverts like asynchronous conversations. Asynchronous conversations provide time to think and process, and then respond.

• People with weakened immunity or workers who live with them.

Working from home is not suitable for…

• Highly collaborative teams rely on impromptu communication.

• Many team members of rural companies cannot access affordable, reliable and fast internet.

• Parents, couples, or people with roommates will be distracted from other people in the family during the working day.

Answer these questions about your remote work experience

Any of the above factors can persuade you to work from home for a long time or it is not suitable for you. Everyone’s situation is unique.

In order to find the best situation for you, please answer the following questions:

• How is your internet connection? Depending on the type of work you do, you can Slow Internet, But you need to answer this question to make sure you plan ahead before you dedicate yourself to working from home.
• What do you miss about the office environment? Can the office’s coincidences, noise, and daily work help you work best-or do you just need a way to go out every day?
• How does working from home affect your schedule? Reducing your daily activities in the morning and commuting time, the flexibility to find a job in the early morning or evening, and working out and cooking around the clock can greatly change your daily life. Do you want to stick to this change?
• How (and why) your productivity has changed during the pandemic? Many workers Especially the mothers of office workersDuring the pandemic, they have been having difficulty keeping up with childcare, homeschooling and working at home at the same time. But if the children are in a nursery or school, what will your life be like working from home?Related: One might be called small Are you more creative when you are no longer facing pandemic pressure?
• What tools do you need to work best? Can you get everything you need to work successfully at home? In the past year, did you have to have nothing-if you want to work from home after COVID, can you get it?

How to ask the boss about working from home

After you have determined that working from home is the right move for you, follow these tips to learn how to ask for work from home after COVID:

• Know your requirements -How many days do you want to work from home or full-time? Do you want to skip the commute route or take your children home?
• Understand the company’s priorities And how to adjust to support their requirements.
• Prepare a performance report Demonstrate your work efficiency so far since the company is far away.
• Explanation How the company benefitsWhen employees work from home.
• Expected problem, aAnd provides potential solutions.
• Propose a transition plan Addresses how working from home might affect your team and what tools are needed for success.

If you find that you are unwilling or unable to work remotely for a long time, then maybe you are ready to find another job.View These companies that work from home Support remote work with or without a pandemic.

Is working from home right for you?

I may be a full telework communicator, but I cannot say whether working from home is suitable for your situation.

Consider your experience in the past year-but add a little salt. Do you like working from home? What are you fighting with? Do you want to be a problem after the pandemic?

The decision to work from home can change your life, for better or for worse. Therefore, don’t take it lightly. Make sure that you are not only motivated by your new love with sweatpants.

Dana Sitar (@danasitar) has been writing and editing since 2011, covering personal finance, career and digital media.

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