5 Biggest Misconceptions of Remote Work
Working from home online jobs is becoming an increasingly popular choice for many as it provides a great degree of flexibility. There are more remote jobs beyond data entry, writing, virtual assistance, customer support, sales, but online teaching, design, software development, marketing, etc.
Remote Jobs are Part-Time Freelance Work Only
Perhaps the majority of the remote workers are focusing on part-time contract work, but there are also plenty of full-time positions with great perks. Many have a misconception about remote jobs are low paying jobs due to its relatively low availability or some even eliminated the work-from-home positions. However, many reputable corporations now hire global talents thanks to the digital age we are currently living in. The Internet has brought remote work to 43% of US employees.
However, the truth is that not all remote work is created equal. Some are telecommuting jobs that allow employees to work remotely at specific days of the week or during the allocated time period. However, the employee still is in the office for the rest of the time.
Productivity Suffers
Surely, the remote job is not suitable for everyone and not all industries embrace remote work. However, productivity is highly depending on your personality, nature of the job, working environment, parenting situation, and many other factors. Remote work does require a good discipline in time and work management. There are many tools for time tracking and project management to facilitate the process. The productivity of work remotely could be greatly boosted as the office distraction is mitigated and if you are able to isolate yourself from other forms of distractions, which is evident for the company Ctrip.
Remote Work is Out of Sync with the Colleague and Apart from Company Culture
Working remotely will certainly require you and the team members to collaborate and communicate differently or even more effectively due to the lack of facetime and ability to swirl your chair to talk to the colleague right behind you. There are many collaboration tools out there from project management like Trello, video conference tools like Zoom, Slack, and Skype, and shared document editors like Google Doc/Sheet to make the process smooth. Nonetheless, you would need to be extra conscious about the time zones differences and work distribution among co-workers.
Remote Work is an Obstruction of Career Growth
Without a doubt, work from home does significantly decrease employee visibility and face-to-face interaction. However, some jobs have less impact than others. Take software developer jobs as an example. Many are hiring more remote talents as the talent shortage and increasing convenient collaboration tools and apps. You don’t always have to live in Silicon Valley and NYC to land the best software developer jobs.
Work from Home is Lonely and Miserable
Free of coworker interruption is great, but working alone can indeed be very lonely at times. If you’re interested in go beyond public spaces like coffee shops and library and invest more bucks, co-working space could potentially a good option to keep you socially engaged.