By Philip Yiga | June 2, 2018

With the power of connectivity and internet access today, a new form of work arrangement called telecommuting has emerged. In fact, telecommuting has allowed employees to work from any preferred location like at home or a café rather than at traditional-workplaces (offices). Additionally, with telecommuting employees can easily communicate with people from the office and even accomplish their tasks while at home. However, although telecommuting is gaining popularity, there are also some disadvantages about it and below are some of the advantages and disadvantages of telecommuting:

 

ADVANTAGES OF TELECOMMUTING:

1. It eliminates commuting to the workplace: If your job requires commuting every day, then telecommuting will eliminate the commuting and help you save a lot of time daily so that you can spend that time on doing other productive things you enjoy like spending more time with kids or spouse, exercising, sleeping or other activities of interest.

 

2. Greater Flexibility: most work-from-home jobs allow for a flexible work schedule. So, in case you want to do something else in the middle of the day like laundry or shopping, then you will be able to achieve this with telecommuting.

 

3. Increased Independence: Work-from-home jobs will allow you to complete your work without constant reminders which most people absolutely love. In fact, with telecommuting there is no office politics, no boss orders and no distracting coworkers. However, there are distracting factors with telecommuting like television, laundry, a comfy bed for napping but these can actually be eliminated with a high degree of self-control and self-discipline in-order to make you a more productive telecommuter.

 

4. More Savings: People who telecommute have very little need for professional clothing and this actually helps them save a lot of money every year. On top of that, telecommuting doesn’t require public-transit or fuel for your private car, lunches-out, dry-cleaning and child-care while saving on taxes each year because of the tax-deductible expenses associated with working from home.

 

5. Suitable for Vulnerable/Disabled People: Telecommuting actually offers a great work-alternative for the disabled, physically handicapped or mothers who may find it difficult to cope-up with traditional-modes of working. In fact, telecommuting allows vulnerable people to opt into gainful employment and even live a great life than never before.

 

6. Greater Fulfillment: With telecommuting, employees will feel happier and more fulfilled than those who work under a traditional working arrangement. This is actually brought about by factors like flexible work schedules, minimal supervisions and the lack of commuting to and from work.

 

7. Increased Employee Satisfaction: Telecommuting allows employees to work from a remote location thus giving them the freedom to get away from a work-routine and make them feel like the company is looking out for them. This actually makes employees more satisfied and happy with their jobs which can result into increased production.

 

8. Increased retention of employees: with telecommuting, an employee will be able to work from home while moving from an old house to the new one that is far-away from the workplace. So, this will help companies to retain competent and loyal employees by simply allowing them to work remotely.

 

Disadvantages of Telecommuting:

• Less human interaction: if you’re a kind of person who loves interacting with other people, then working from home will make you feel isolated. However, you can solve isolation by chatting with friends through e-mail, phone calls, instant messaging, and video conferencing but still it’s not a greater substitute to face-to-face interactions. Additionally, some telecommuters consider working from a coffee shop or library in-order to satisfy interaction-habits. On top of that, a co-working space might solve this problem by allowing you to telecommute while working from an office setting.

 

• More Distractions: Working under a home environment actually comes with plenty of people or things that can easily distract you like; Radio, Television, Kids, etc. This will negatively impact you productivity levels.

 

• It requires high self-motivation: With telecommuting, an employee must be highly self-motivated in-order to be more productive. This is mainly because there are many things that can distract you while working from home ranging from kids, friends to electronics.

 

• It Mixes Work and Personal Life: With telecommuting, you can’t always shut-out your personal life while you’re working or turn-off your work-life while you’re “off the clock”. However, having a separate work space from your home can help solve this but some people find it difficult to stop working when they know it’s only a few feet away from home.

 

• Lack of the ability to Brainstorm: Telecommuting is totally different from working in a traditional office environment where you can easily brainstorm with peers when encountering problems. In fact, with telecommuting there is no one to consult in-case you get a problem and this greatly affects your performance and productivity-levels.

 

• It Hinders Career Growth and Development: Telecommuting actually makes it almost impossible to evaluate and supervise your performance. For example, it’s very hard for a company to a telecommuting employer for promotions thus greatly affecting your career growth and development.

 

• Breach of Security: With telecommuting, employees can be provided with pass-codes to get connected to company network but this actually increases on security risks like hacking and unwanted intruders who might gain access to pass-codes thus putting an entire company at risk.

 

• Affects Employee Morale: incase a company allows top-employees to telecommute like supervisors and managers who are looked up to by other employees, Then this will greatly affect the morale of members of the team that is left behind. In fact, it will affect the decisions needed to be made since it’s very difficult to decide without people brainstorming for solutions to a problem.

 

• Difficult to Demonstrate Workload: If you are a telecommuter working for a company with a traditional office setup, other office-bound coworkers might perceive you as doing less-work simply because you’re at home. So, it’s very important to showcase your workload to demonstrate to managers and coworkers that you are accomplishing as much or more in-case your telecommuting.