Most people dream of working from home – surrounded by your comforts, working in your pjs if you like or popping into your local coffee shop to catch up on your emails, however is it everything people expect and what are the downsides to remote working?

Remote working has a long list of pros.  It enables companies to hire people all over the world without the need to see them everyday and work along side them in an office – saving hundreds of thousands every year, however the downsides are often forgotten about.

The Relationship Building

Relying on platforms such as email, slack and skype is simply not enough to create meaningful, trustworthy relationships.  Why? Because the most important work within an organisation is done face to face – whether that’s with clients or your colleagues.  If you want to move up the ranks in your company and become a leader in your organisation you need to be working directly with people.

Leadership is an inside job and you need to know individual work ethics – working remotely makes it very difficult to analyse whether you’re right for that promotion.

The Loneliness

You might enjoy the peace and quite for a short period of time, but loneliness is inevitable when it comes to remote working.  You will be interacting with people face to face for a minimal amount of time during working hours – say goodbye to socialising with work friends outside of work, because they’re likely to be scattered across the world!

The Blurred Lines

It’s hard enough distinguishing work hours from personal hours when you work from an office – it’s all too easy to check your emails whilst in the gym after work, however working remotely makes that even harder.  If your environment is the same for work and play it’s difficult not to do one whilst you’re trying to do the other.

If you’re contemplating remote working, look at both the pros and cons to see if it’s right for you.  We suggest working both remotely and in the office, until you’ve found the right balance for you!