How Realistically Beneficial Is Working From Home?
Mid adult woman sitting on floor, leaning on sofa, talking on, using laptop, side view
We ever so growing world of digitalization, there are more and more opportunities for people to work or start their own business from home. And this is specifically beneficial for stayed home parents, full-time students, people with disabilities where it’s hard to commute or people living in remote areas where there are fewer job opportunities. Working online from home has open so many doors for so many people who would otherwise be unemployed or struggling with daily challenges.
Advantages of working from home
There are many advantages of working from home, a few of which are as follows;
Productivity
Research has proven that employees working from home are more productive as they are working in their private and peaceful space, fewer distractions hence more efficiency.
Commute
When you are working from home you do not have to worry about commuting cost, the time it takes to travel to work and neither you have to waste time getting stuck in peak hour traffic. The average cost of commuting in a big city say London is £200 to £300 a month. So, by working from home, you are either saving about £200 to £300 or you can work at least 20 hours less a week to earn some kind of money.
Child Care Cost
Working online from home is the best option for single parents as it saves child care costs. It is very expensive to leave children with paid nurseries and with nannies. And even if you are paying so much your pick and drop hours are still going to clash with nurseries’ opening and closing hours. And your child gets to see so little of you growing up. When you are working from home you can work around your children’s clock. This takes us to the next advantage of working from home I.e. flexibility
Flexibility
With online working from home, you have got the flexibility you need. If you are a single parent or stayed home parents, you can work around your children’s school hours, pick and drop hours, their lunches and dinners.
You can take your kids to the park, go shopping, spend some valuable time with your family and still work over the span of 24hours rather than 9 to 5 office hours. If you are a student you can work around your school or college hours.
You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. You would be studying as well as building your own brand or gaining experience by working for someone else. So, by the time you finish college, you would have a nice CV to put to recruiting agencies.
Experience
Like I said before it’s a good experience for students and stayed home parents, as they would have work experience in their CV as well as they would have actually gained experience which is going to be helpful in their careers.
Relaxed
Where else would you be more relaxed but your own home? So as you are working from home you are in a relaxed and safe environment. This helps you concentrate more and hence helps you be more productive. Secure communication systems also allow you to relax with the data and transactions.
More time with family
As you are working from home, it is a given that you would be able to spend more time with your family. You can work more a day before you have to go to a friend or family member’s birthday without it affecting your targets. And you don’t have to worry about not getting a day off for a certain commitment.
Entrepreneurs
If we would talk about being an entrepreneurs a decade ago, being one needed stock in hand, a place to lease or own, staff, etc and if you are providing a service only means of advertising was ajbjm9 local newspaper or radios which wasn’t so cheap, or leafleting or going door to door. But with online shops and marketing, you don’t have to worry if you are starting something from a very low budget.
There are websites and social media platforms like Facebook and EE Stone that provide entrepreneurs a medium to take off. You can just post your services and products on these online communities that post your business in the local area or required area of your expertise, from there you can build your business.
On platforms like EE Stone, there is a safer way of payment as well, where you put your product or service online, the customer buys the product or service and transfer the money into the safe payment method where the money is held by EE Stone until the customer releases it. This way it is safe for both sellers and buyers.
Now if you are a stay home mom and know how to crotchet all you have to do is make some stuff like scarves or baby shoes and put them online on one or all of these platforms where its mostly free to list an item or only pay when you sell. Turning your hobby into a successful business has never been so easy.
Disadvantages
There are some disadvantages as well.
Lack of socialization
When you are staying home and working from as well chances are you do not socialize a lot. You don’t get a chance to meet all sorts of diversity. No work friends and official dinners etc.
Difficulties in separating home from work
Sometimes it’s very difficult to separate home from work and know how much time you need to allocate to work. Sometimes with lack of discipline and time management, you can fall behind your deadlines and can lose clients
Distractions
There are more distractions when you work from home. You can have a guest in the time you have allocated for your work, kids running around keeping you busy can make you work slower. Family outings could be a distraction where otherwise they are limited to weekends or days you are off work.
Confidence
Staying home most of the time can result in isolation. If you are isolated from the world you would not bother how you look at what you are wearing, and when you do go out you feel less confident.
Having discussed that, I think online work has more advantages, and it broadens the horizon for so many people in so many ways.
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