Taking into consideration current problems associated with coronavirus outbreak, many companies decide to send their employees home to work remotely. We recommend similar solution and encourage having our employees working in home office mode wherever possible, i.e. with no need of leaving their homes. All in line with the recommendations of #stayathome social campaign.
Who can work remotely and provide services from home?
Advantages of remote work
- No imposed working hours. You can realize your tasks practically all day long, focussing more in the morning or in the evening, depending when you want. But in this case one must present really good skills of organizing one’s time in order to deliver all the tasks.
- Possibility of working from virtually anywhere in the world. If you can work remotely, have a computer with fast internet connection and a mobile phone, you can work practically from any place in the world.
- You are at work always on time. Working from home means no time wasted on commuting, which very often consumes substantial part of your day. This way you can save fuel or money spent on tickets, do not get frustrated with traffic jams, and the time saved this way can be spent on longer sleeping or... working more.
- Work in peace and quiet. If you are able to organize your place of work in a proper way, no talks of your colleagues will distract you, or clicking on keyboard at the same time by a number of people.
- Measurable savings, not only on fuel or tickets, but also of time. Thanks to this you have more time for your family; you can easier look after children or sick people being under your custody.
- You do not need to adapt to office dress code. In remote work it does not really matter much if you are working in formal clothes, in a track suit or... in pyjamas.
- No worries that you are going to be late to work. Probability of oversleeping in home office mode is much smaller than if you need to commute to work. And, theoretically, if your alarm clock did not work, you can wake up and start working immediately.
- You are more independent. In case of remote work, most of the tasks are realized without direct supervision of your boss. For well-organized employees it can be an advantage, but at the same time it is a trap for those, who cannot discipline themselves and force themselves to deliver satisfactory results.
- Possibility of working even not being completely well. It is especially convenient in situations, when you are not well enough to travel to work, but you can easily work from home. The solution can also be used by handicapped persons or people with chronic diseases, who have problems with commuting, and also by women coming back to work after maternity leave.
Disadvantages of remote work
- Unlimited working hours. In theory an advantage, but at the same time a disadvantage for people who lack self-discipline. Unlimited working hours in home office mode often mean that you do not finish work at 4 p.m., but keep working until you have finished.
- No contact with fellow workers. For an extrovert it is often hard to find themselves in remote work. Those people need contact with another person, discussion with him or her or just his or her presence. For them daily visit to the office is really important. With no external impulse, effectiveness of their work is getting weaker.
- Distraction. Working from home is hard to keep concentrated for the whole day. The problem is mostly for people who have no separate workplace, and around them is the whole family (schoolchildren, pre-school children) who absorb their attention.
- Getting lazy. Resulting from disturbance of daily routine (morning grooming, breakfast, departure to work), and lack of possibility to keep self-discipline in delivering work tasks.
- Relaxed working atmosphere. It mostly applies to people who, besides having business tasks, must also look after children, do the cleaning or prepare dinner, etc. at the same time.
- Problem with keeping work-life balance. When working from home, the border between private life and working life is being faded away, and this in turn may have negative influence on realization of business tasks.
- Motivation to work. Even if the employee willingly accepts the possibility of remote work, after some time his motivation and enthusiasm are getting much weaker. One needs perfect self-discipline and organization of time in order to deliver all the work tasks on time.
See how employees of Inter Cars asses their possibility of working from home:
Optimal solutions in my case, is combining the work in the office with direct contact with other people and 2 days in home office mode. I have no problem with setting priorities of tasks being at home. Nevertheless, direct contact with people is much needed in my work, as during meetings it provides possibility of obtaining some important information very fast and makes some agreements much more precise. Indispensable advantage is also direct contact with the team and possibility of running brainstorming sessions. After March 2020 many things can change, that is why I am much open for using all types of online tools, including communicators, shared documents, VPN or teleconferences. I have used such forms of work also before the outbreak of coronavirus, which is why currently these solutions are not new for me.
Marketing Department, Warsaw
I have a small flat and three children in it, and this makes me not like working in home office mode. I haven’t got proper comfort of working at home as I cannot count on peace and quiet, so I prefer coming to the office. Here I can be more focussed on tasks that I am to realize and my effectiveness is growing.
IT Specialist, Giżycko
Till now I had no chance to work in home office mode and I thought that I would rather have no chance of trying to do so. But now, when I am forced to work this way, I can notice quite a lot of advantages. Even lack of direct contact with other people is not bothering me so much, when one can contact business partners using TEAMS or Skype.
Product Manager, Krakow
I love working remotely. I can work calmly, on documents only, not having contact with customers. In home office mode I seldom contact other people from the company, thanks to this I can keep continuity of work and nothing distracts me in realizing my daily tasks.
Accounts department, Czosnów
I am a warehouse keeper, so in my case remote work is not possible at all. Anyway, I am not complaining as thanks to this I have an opportunity to leave home, meet other people and limit... moaning of my wife. Although I am not using technology to work from home, in the warehouse we are often using most modern tools like product sorter to sort goods to proper parcels and deliveries to customers.
Warehouse keeper, Zakroczym
- Remote work bears multiple advantages as well as dangers. First thing that comes to my mind is the matter of flexible working hours. Spending a lot of time on your work tasks, it is really easy to get lost in numerous work projects, sacrificing your home duties. There are also people among us, who are on the other side of this danger. They get distracted easily and pay more attention to their home duties than to their work tasks, and this may lead to conflicts in the team and the feeling of injustice. That is why the role of manager is so important in remote working, assigning tasks and executing their realization.
Marketing Department, Warsaw
Like everything, home office also has some advantages and disadvantages. In previous reality, i.e. before “March 2020” I liked my one day of home office very much - I had time to make it up with all the overdue tasks. In the long run working in home office mode is a challenge. Some of the colleagues need to have a direct contact with one another as thanks to this work goes much smoother and some projects are discussed faster, decisions are taken and next steps agreed. Direct contact is a shorter and faster way of agreeing things. With online work it is really important to be able to create fruitful online meetings, so that the biggest possible number of things is settled, clarified and executed. Another advantage of such meetings is the fact that virtually unlimited number of people can participate in them, from any place in Poland or Europe, meaning everyone can be updated with status of all the discussed projects.
Product Manager, Warsaw
