work from home culture essay

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The Realities of Remote Work

Laura Amico

Work-life boundaries are blurring and managers worry about productivity. What can be done?

The Covid-19 pandemic sparked what economist Nicholas Bloom calls the “ working-from-home economy .” While some workers may have had flexibility to work remotely before the pandemic, this unprecedented shift to remote work looks like it could be here to stay in some form.

Laura Amico is a former senior editor at Harvard Business Review.

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The bright future of working from home

There seems to be an endless tide of depressing news in this era of COVID-19. But one silver lining is the long-run explosion of working from home. Since March I have been talking to dozens of CEOs, senior managers, policymakers and journalists about the future of working from home. This has built on my own personal experience from running surveys about working from home and an experiment published in 2015 which saw a 13 percent increase in productivity by employees at a Chinese travel company called Ctrip who worked from home.

So here a few key themes that can hopefully make for some good news:

Mass working from home is here to stay

Once the COVID-19 pandemic passes, rates of people working from home will explode. In 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that 8 percent of all employees worked from home at least one day a week.

I see these numbers more than doubling in a post-pandemic world. I suspect almost all employees who can work from home — which is estimated at about 40 percent of employees — will be allowed to work from home at least one day a week.

Why? Consider these three reasons

Fear of crowds.

Even if COVID-19 passes, the fear of future pandemics will motivate people to move away from urban centers and avoid public transport. So firms will struggle to get their employees back to the office on a daily basis. With the pandemic, working from home has become a standard perk, like sick-leave or health insurance.

Investments in telecommuting technology

By now, we have plenty of experience working from home. We’ve become adept at video conferencing. We’ve fine-tuned our home offices and rescheduled our days. Similarly, offices have tried out, improved and refined life for home-based work forces. In short, we have all paid the startup cost for learning how to work from home, making it far easier to continue.

The end of stigma

Finally, the stigma of working from home has evaporated. Before COVID-19, I frequently heard comments like, “working from home is shirking from home,” or “working remotely is remotely working.” I remember Boris Johnson, who was Mayor of London in 2012 when the London Olympics closed the city down for three weeks, saying working from home was “a skivers paradise.” No longer. All of us have now tried this and we understand we can potentially work effectively — if you have your own room and no kids — at home.

Of course, working from home was already trending up due to improved technology and remote monitoring. It is relatively cheap and easy to buy a top-end laptop and connect it to broadband internet service. This technology also makes it easier to monitor employees at home. Indeed, one senior manager recently told me: “We already track our employees — we know how many emails they send, meetings they attend or documents they write using our office management system. So monitoring them at home is really no different from monitoring them in the office. I see how they are doing and what they are doing whether they are at home or in the office.”

This is not only good news for firms in terms of boosting employee morale while improving productivity, but can also free up significant office space. In our China experiment, Ctrip calculated it increased profits by $2,000 per employee who worked from home.

Best practices in working from home post pandemic

Many of us are currently working from home full-time, with kids in the house, often in shared rooms, bedrooms or even bathrooms. So if working from home is going to continue and even increase once the pandemic is over, there are a few lessons we’ve learned to make telecommuting more effective. Let’s take a look:

Working from home should be part-time

I think the ideal schedule is Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the office and Tuesday and Thursday at home. Most of us need time in the office to stay motivated and creative. Face-to-face meetings are important for spurring and developing new ideas, and at least personally I find it hard to stay focused day after day at home. But we also need peaceful time at home to concentrate, undertake longer-term thinking and often to catch-up on tedious paperwork. And spending the same regular three days in the office each week means we can schedule meetings, lunches, coffees, etc., around that, and plan our “concentration work” during our two days at home.

The choice of Tuesday and Thursday at home comes from talking to managers who are often fearful that a work-from-home day — particularly if attached to a weekend — will turn into a beach day. So Tuesday and Thursday at home avoids creating a big block of days that the boss and the boss of the boss may fear employees may use for unauthorized mini-breaks.

Working from home should be a choice

I found in the Ctrip experiment that many people did not want to work from home. Of the 1,000 employees we asked, only 50 percent volunteered to work from home four days a week for a nine-month stretch. Those who took the offer were typically older married employees with kids. For many younger workers, the office is a core part of their social life, and like the Chinese employees, would happily commute in and out of work each day to see their colleagues. Indeed, surveys in the U.S. suggest up to one-third of us meet our future spouses at work.

Working from home should be flexible

After the end of the 9-month Ctrip experiment, we asked all volunteers if they wanted to continue working from home. Surprisingly, 50 percent of them opted to return to the office. The saying is “the three great enemies of working from home are the fridge, the bed and the TV,” and many of them fell victim to one of them. They told us it was hard to predict in advance, but after a couple of months working from home they figured out if it worked for them or not. And after we let the less-successful home-based employees return to the office, those remaining had a 25 percent higher rate of productivity.

Working from home is a privilege

Working from home for employees should be a perk. In our Ctrip experiment, home-based workers increased their productivity by 13 percent. So on average were being highly productive. But there is always the fear that one or two employees may abuse the system. So those whose performance drops at home should be warned, and if necessary recalled into the office for a couple of months before they are given a second chance.

There are two other impacts of working from home that should be addressed

The first deals with the decline in prices for urban commercial and residential spaces. The impact of a massive roll-out in working from home is likely to be falling demand for both housing and office space in the center of cities like New York and San Francisco. Ever since the 1980s, the centers of large U.S. cities have become denser and more expensive. Younger graduate workers in particular have flocked to city centers and pushed up housing and office prices. This 40-year year bull run has ended .

If prices fell back to their levels in say the 1990s or 2000s this would lead to massive drops of 50 percent or more in city-center apartment and office prices. In reverse, the suburbs may be staging a comeback. If COVID-19 pushed people to part-time working from home and part-time commuting by car, the suburbs are the natural place to locate these smaller drivable offices. The upside to this is the affordability crisis of apartments in city centers could be coming to an end as property prices drop.

The second impact I see is a risk of increased political polarization. In the 1950s, Americans all watched the same media, often lived in similar areas and attended similar schools. By the 2020s, media has become fragmented, residential segregation by income has increased dramatically , and even our schools are starting to fragment with the rise of charter schools.

The one constant equalizer — until recently — was the workplace. We all have to come into work and talk to our colleagues. Hence, those on the extreme left or right are forced to confront others over lunch and in breaks, hopefully moderating their views. If we end up increasing our time at home — particularly during the COVID lock-down — I worry about an explosion of radical political views.

But with an understanding of these risks and some forethought for how to mitigate them, a future with more of us working from home can certainly work well.

Working from Home: Pros, Cons, and Strategies for Success

Categories: Work-Life Balance Workplace

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Advantages of working from home, disadvantages of working from home, strategies for success in working from home.

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What’s next for remote work: An analysis of 2,000 tasks, 800 jobs, and nine countries

For many workers, COVID-19’s impact has depended greatly on one question: Can I work from home or am I tethered to my workplace? Quarantines, lockdowns, and self-imposed isolation have pushed tens of millions around the world to work from home, accelerating a workplace experiment that had struggled to gain traction before COVID-19 hit.

Now, well into the pandemic, the limitations and the benefits of remote work are clearer. Although many people are returning to the workplace as economies reopen—the majority could not work remotely at all—executives have indicated in surveys that hybrid models of remote work for some employees are here to stay. The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

Now that vaccines are awaiting approval, the question looms: To what extent will remote work persist ? In this article, we assess the possibility for various work activities to be performed remotely. Building on the McKinsey Global Institute’s body of work on automation, AI, and the future of work, we extend our models to consider where work is performed. 1 The future of work in Europe: Automation, workforce transitions, and the future geography of work , McKinsey Global Institute, June 2020; The future of work in America: People and places, today and tomorrow , McKinsey Global Institute, July 2019; Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation , McKinsey Global Institute, December 2017. Our analysis finds that the potential for remote work is highly concentrated among highly skilled, highly educated workers in a handful of industries, occupations, and geographies.

More than 20 percent of the workforce could work remotely three to five days a week as effectively as they could if working from an office. If remote work took hold at that level, that would mean three to four times as many people working from home than before the pandemic and would have a profound impact on urban economies, transportation, and consumer spending, among other things.

The virus has broken through cultural and technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past, setting in motion a structural shift in where work takes place, at least for some people.

More than half the workforce, however, has little or no opportunity for remote work. Some of their jobs require collaborating with others or using specialized machinery; other jobs, such as conducting CT scans, must be done on location; and some, such as making deliveries, are performed while out and about. Many of such jobs are low wage and more at risk from broad trends such as automation and digitization. Remote work thus risks accentuating inequalities at a social level.

The potential for remote work is determined by tasks and activities, not occupations

Remote work raises a vast array of issues and challenges for employees and employers. Companies are pondering how best to deliver coaching remotely and how to configure workspaces to enhance employee safety, among a host of other thorny questions raised by COVID-19. For their part, employees are struggling to find the best home-work balance and equip themselves for working and collaborating remotely.

In this article, however, we aim to granularly define the activities and occupations that can be done from home to better understand the future staying power of remote work. We have analyzed the potential for remote work—or work that doesn’t require interpersonal interaction or a physical presence at a specific worksite—in a range of countries, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We used MGI’s workforce model based on the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to analyze more than 2,000 activities in more than 800 occupations and identify which activities and occupations have the greatest potential for remote work.

The potential for remote work depends on the mix of activities undertaken in each occupation and on their physical, spatial, and interpersonal context. We first assessed the theoretical extent to which an activity can be done remotely. This depends on whether a worker needs to be physically present on-site to do a task, interact with others, or use location-specific machinery or equipment.

Many physical or manual activities, as well as those that require use of fixed equipment, cannot be done remotely. These include providing care, operating machinery, using lab equipment, and processing customer transactions in stores. In contrast, activities such as information gathering and processing, communicating with others, teaching and counseling, and coding data can theoretically be done remotely.

Additionally, employers have found during the pandemic that although some tasks can be done remotely in a crisis, they are much more effectively done in person. These activities include coaching, counseling, and providing advice and feedback; building customer and colleague relationships; bringing new employees into a company; negotiating and making critical decisions; teaching and training; and work that benefits from collaboration, such as innovation, problem-solving, and creativity. If onboarding were to be done remotely, for instance, it would require significant rethinking of the activity to produce outcomes similar to those achieved in person.

For instance, while teaching has moved to remote work during the pandemic, parents and teachers alike say that quality has suffered. Similarly, courtrooms have functioned remotely but are unlikely to remain online going forward out of concern for legal rights and equity—some defendants lack adequate connectivity and lawyers, and judges worry about missing nonverbal cues in video conferences.

So we have devised two metrics for remote work potential: the maximum potential, including all activities that theoretically can be performed remotely, and a lower bound for the effective potential for remote work, which excludes activities that have a clear benefit from being done in person (Exhibit 1).

To determine the overall potential for remote work for jobs and sectors, we use the time spent on different activities within occupations. We find that remote work potential is concentrated in a few sectors. Finance and insurance has the highest potential, with three-quarters of time spent on activities that can be done remotely without a loss of productivity. Management, business services, and information technology have the next highest potential, all with more than half of employee time spent on activities that could effectively be done remotely (Exhibit 2). These sectors are characterized by a high share of workers with college degrees or higher.

Remote work potential is higher in advanced economies

The potential for remote work varies across countries, a reflection of their sector, occupation, and activity mix. Business and financial services are a large share of the UK economy, for example, and it has the highest potential for remote work among the countries we examined. Its workforce could theoretically work remotely one-third of the time without a loss of productivity, or almost half the time but with diminished productivity. (Exhibit 3). Other advanced economies are not far behind; their workforces could dedicate 28 to 30 percent of the time to working remotely without losing productivity.

In emerging economies, employment is skewed toward occupations that require physical and manual activities in sectors like agriculture and manufacturing. The potential for time spent on remote work drops to 12 to 26 percent in the emerging economies we assessed. In India, for instance, the workforce could spend just 12 percent of the time working remotely without losing effectiveness. Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

Although India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of its workforce of 464 million is employed in occupations like retail services and agriculture that cannot be done remotely.

A hybrid model that combines some remote work with work in an office is possible for occupations with high remote work potential

For most workers, some activities during a typical day lend themselves to remote work, while the rest of their tasks require their on-site physical presence. In the US workforce, we find that just 22 percent of employees can work remotely between three and five days a week without affecting productivity, while only 5 percent could do so in India. In contrast, 61 percent of the workforce in the United States can work no more than a few hours a week remotely or not at all. The remaining 17 percent of the workforce could work remotely partially, between one and three days per week (Exhibit 4).

Consider a floral designer. We estimate that between half and one-quarter of his job can be done remotely. He can take orders by phone or online and contract for delivery through an app, but floral arrangement itself requires being in a shop where the flowers are stored in a refrigerated case and ribbons, moss, vases, and other materials used to create a floral design are at hand. To make a floral designer’s job more remote would require dividing his various tasks among all employees in a flower shop. In contrast, credit analysts, database administrators, and tax preparers, among others, can do virtually all of their work remotely. In general, workers whose jobs require cognitive thinking and problem solving, managing and developing people, and data processing have the greatest potential to work from home. These employees also tend to be among the highest paid.

The ability to work remotely also depends on the need to use specialized equipment. According to our analysis, a chemical technician could work remotely only a quarter of the time because much of her work must be done in a lab housing the equipment she needs. Among healthcare occupations, general practitioners who can use digital technologies to communicate with patients have a much greater potential for remote work than surgeons and x-ray technicians, who need advanced equipment and tools to do their work. Thus, among health professionals overall, the effective remote work potential is just 11 percent.

Even for the same activity, the context in which a job is done matters. Consider the activity “analyzing data or information,” which can be done remotely by a statistician or financial analyst but not by a surveyor. Crime scene analysts and workers who analyze consumer trends both engage in what O*NET describes as “getting, processing, analyzing, documenting and interpreting information,” but the former must go to the location of, say, a murder while the latter can do his work in front of a computer at home. A travel agent can calculate the cost of goods or services from a kitchen table, but a grocery clerk does that from behind a counter in a store.

And then there are jobs that require workers to be on-site or in person more than four days a week. Due to the physical nature of most of their work activities, occupations such as transportation, food services, property maintenance, and agriculture offer little or no opportunity for remote work. Building inspectors must go to a building or construction site. Nursing assistants must work in a healthcare facility. Many jobs declared essential by governments during the pandemic—nursing, building maintenance, and garbage collection, for example—fall into this category of jobs with low remote work potential.

This mixed pattern of remote and physical activities of each occupation helps explain the results of a recent McKinsey survey of 800 corporate executives around the world. Across all sectors, 38 percent of respondents expect their remote employees to work two or more days a week away from the office after the pandemic, compared to 22 percent of respondents surveyed before the pandemic. But just 19 percent of respondents to the most recent survey said they expected employees to work three or more days remotely. This suggests that executives anticipate operating their businesses with a hybrid model of some sort, with employees working remotely and from an office during the workweek. JPMorgan already has a plan for its 60,950 employees to work from home one or two weeks a month or two days a week, depending on the line of business.

Hybrid remote work has important implications for urban economies

Currently, only a small share of the workforce in advanced economies—typically between 5 and 7 percent—regularly works from home. A shift to 15 to 20 percent of workers spending more time at home and less in the office could have profound impacts on urban economies. More people working remotely means fewer people commuting between home and work every day or traveling to different locations for work. This could have significant economic consequences, including on transportation, gasoline and auto sales, restaurants and retail in urban centers, demand for office real estate, and other consumption patterns.

A McKinsey survey of office space managers conducted in May found that after the pandemic, they expect a 36 percent increase in worktime outside their offices, affecting main offices and satellite locations. This means companies will need less office space, and several are already planning to reduce real estate expenses. Moody’s Analytics predicts that the office vacancy rate in the United States will climb to 19.4 percent, compared to 16.8 percent at the end of 2019, and rise to 20.2 percent by the end of 2022. A survey of 248 US chief operating officers found that one-third plan to reduce office space in the coming years as leases expire.

The impact of that will reverberate through the restaurants and bars, shops, and services businesses that cater to office workers and will put a dent in some state and local tax revenues. For example, REI plans to sell off its new corporate headquarters before even moving in and instead begin operating from satellite offices. In contrast, Amazon recently signed leases for a total of 900,000 feet of office space in six cities around the United States, citing the lack of spontaneity in virtual teamwork.

As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history.

Nor is residential real estate immune from the impact of remote work. As tech companies announced plans for permanent remote work options, the median price of a one-bedroom rental in San Francisco dropped 24.2 percent compared to a year ago, while in New York City, which had roughly 28,000 residents in every square mile at the start of 2020, 15,000 rental apartments were empty in September, the most vacancies in recorded history. Conversely, bidding wars are breaking out in suburbs and smaller cities as remote workers seek less harried, less expensive lifestyles and homes with a room that can serve as an office or gym—though it is unclear how successful companies will be with workers scattered in far-flung locales.

Remote workers may also shift consumption patterns. Less money spent on transportation, lunch, and wardrobes suitable for the office may be shifted to other uses. Sales of home office equipment, digital tools, and enhanced connectivity gear have boomed.

Whether the shift to remote work translates into spreading prosperity to smaller cities remains to be seen. Previous MGI research in the United States and Europe has shown a trend toward greater geographic concentration of work in megacities like London and New York and high-growth hubs, including Seattle and Amsterdam . These locales have attracted many of the same type of younger, highly educated workers who can best work remotely. It remains to be seen whether the shift to remote work slows that trend, or whether the most vibrant cities remain magnets for such people.

Organizations will have to adjust their practices to capture potential productivity gains from remote work

Is remote work good for productivity? Ultimately, the answer may determine its popularity, especially given the long period of waning labor productivity that preceded the pandemic. So far, there is scant clarity—and widespread contradiction—about the productivity impact. Some 41 percent of employees who responded to a McKinsey consumer survey in May said they were more productive working remotely than in the office. As employees have gained experience working remotely during the pandemic, their confidence in their productivity has grown, with the number of people saying they worked more productively increasing by 45 percent from April to May.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers. Interviews with chief executives about remote work elicited a mixed range of opinions. Some express confidence that remote work can continue, while others say they see few positives to remote work.

With nine months of experience under their belts, more employers are seeing somewhat better productivity from their remote workers.

One impediment to productivity may be connectivity. A researcher at Stanford University found that only 65 percent of Americans surveyed said they had fast enough internet service to support viable video calls, and in many parts of the developing world, the connectivity infrastructure is sparse or nonexistent. Developing digital infrastructure will require significant public and private investment.

For women in particular, remote work is a mixed blessing. It boosts flexibility—not needing to be physically co-located with fellow workers enables independent work and more flexible hours—as well as productivity, with less time wasted commuting. Yet remote work also may increase gender disparity in the workplace, exacerbating the regressive effects of COVID-19. The female workforce in many economies is more highly concentrated in occupational clusters like healthcare, food services, and customer service that have relatively low potential for remote work. Previous MGI research on gender parity found that jobs held by women are 19 percent more at risk than jobs held by men simply because women are disproportionately represented in sectors most negatively affected by COVID-19.

Some forms of remote work are likely to persist long after COVID-19 is conquered. This will require many shifts, such as investment in digital infrastructure, freeing up office space, and the structural transformation of cities, food services, commercial real estate, and retail. It also risks accentuating inequalities and creating new psychological and emotional stresses among employees, including from isolation. For most companies, having employees work outside the office will require reinventing many processes and policies. How long before someone invents the virtual watercooler?

The authors wish to thank Olivia Robinson, Gurneet Singh Dandona, and Alok Singh for their contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Stephanie Strom, a senior editor at the McKinsey Global Institute.

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Why Managers Fear a Remote-Work Future

Like it or not, the way we work has already evolved.

An office worker at a cubicle. He looks bored.

In 2019, Steven Spielberg called for a ban on Oscar eligibility for streaming films , claiming that “movie theaters need to be around forever” and that audiences had to be given “the motion picture theatrical experience” for a movie to be a movie. Spielberg’s fury was about not only the threat that streaming posed to the in-person viewing experience but the ways in which the streaming giant Netflix reported theatrical grosses and budgets, despite these not being the ways in which one evaluates whether a movie is good or not. Netflix held firm, saying that it stood for “everyone, everywhere [enjoying] releases at the same time,” and for “giving filmmakers more ways to share art.” Ultimately, Spielberg relented, and last month his company even signed a deal with Netflix , likely because he now sees the writing on the wall: Modern audiences enjoy watching movies at home.

In key ways, this fight resembles the current remote-work debate in industries such as technology and finance. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, this has often been cast as a battle between the old guard and its assumed necessities and a new guard that has found a better way to get things done. But the narrative is not that tidy. Netflix’s co-founder and CEO, Reed Hastings, one of the great “disruptors” of our age, deemed remote work “ a pure negative ” last fall. The 60-year-old Hastings is at the forefront of an existential crisis in the world of work, demanding that people return to the office despite not having an office himself . His criticism of remote work is that “not being able to get together in person” is bad.

Every business leader should ask themselves a few questions before demanding that their employees return to the office:

Prior to March 2020, how many days a week were you personally in the office?
How many teams did you directly interface with? What teams did you spend the most time with?
Do you have an office? If you don’t, why not?
What is your specific office’s culture ?
If so, how ? Be specific.

Some of the people loudly calling for a return to the office are not the same people who will actually be returning to the office regularly. The old guard’s members feel heightened anxiety over the white-collar empires they’ve built, including the square footage of real estate they’ve leased and the number of people they’ve hired. Earlier this year, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, rolled out an uneven return-to-office plan for its more than 130,000 employees—the majority of workers must soon come back to the office three days a week, while others are permitted to keep working exclusively from home. One senior executive at the company has even been allowed to work remotely from New Zealand .

Derek Thompson: Winners and losers of the work-from-home revolution

Remote work lays bare many brutal inefficiencies and problems that executives don’t want to deal with because they reflect poorly on leaders and those they’ve hired. Remote work empowers those who produce and disempowers those who have succeeded by being excellent diplomats and poor workers, along with those who have succeeded by always finding someone to blame for their failures. It removes the ability to seem productive (by sitting at your desk looking stressed or always being on the phone), and also, crucially, may reveal how many bosses and managers simply don’t contribute to the bottom line.

I have run my own remote company that operates at the intersection of technology, media, and public relations since 2013. I retained an office for a year or so that I got rid of because it was really just a place to meet before going off to have drinks. For seven years before the pandemic, some of my peers showed concern that my business “wouldn’t succeed without an in-person team.”

Some people really do need to show up in person. I live in Las Vegas, a city of more than 600,000 people with more than 200,000 hospitality workers, and thus I’m keenly aware of which tasks require someone to physically be there to complete them. You can’t wash dishes over Zoom. You can’t change bed sheets over Slack. Blue-collar workers are the backbone of the city, as well as the Consumer Electronics Show that the tech elite uses to champion code-based products. Local hospitality workers suffered painfully during the pandemic as tourism in the city dried up, because their jobs depend on thriving physical spaces .

But for the tens of millions of us who spend most of our days sitting at a computer, the pandemic proved that remote work is just work. Every company that didn’t require someone to physically do something in a specific place was forced to become more efficient on cloud-based production tools, and the office started to feel like just another room with internet access. While many executives and managers spent the early months of the pandemic telling their employees that “remote work wouldn’t work for us in the long term,” they are now forced to argue with the tangible proof of their still-standing business, making spurious statements like “We’ll miss the office culture and collaboration.”

Read: There’s a perfect number of days to work from home, and it’s 2

Now, with the coronavirus’s Delta variant threatening to delay many companies’ return-to-office plans, the value of in-person work faces an even greater test. If you have unvaccinated kids or live with an immunocompromised person, is risking your family’s safety worth experiencing “serendipitous conversation” with your colleagues?

Should you ever go back to the office?

Last fall, 94 percent of employees surveyed in a Mercer study reported that remote work was either business as usual or better than working in the office, likely because it lacks the distractions, annoyances, and soft abuses that come with co-workers and middle managers. Workers are happier because they don’t have to commute and can be evaluated mostly on their actual work rather than on the optics-driven albatross of “office culture,” which is largely based on either the HR handbook or the pieces of the HR handbook your boss chooses to ignore.

The reason working from home is so nightmarish for many managers and executives is that a great deal of modern business has been built on the substrate of in-person work. As a society, we tend to consider management a title rather than a skill, something to promote people to, as well as a way in which you can abstract yourself from the work product. When you remove the physical office space—the place where people are yelled at in private offices or singled out in meetings—it becomes a lot harder to spook people as a type of management. In fact, your position at a company becomes more difficult to justify if all you do is delegate and nag people .

When we are all in the same physical space, we are oftentimes evaluated not on our execution of our role but on our diplomacy—by which I mean our ability to kiss up to the right people rather than actually being a decent person. I have known so many people within my industry (and in others) who have built careers on “playing nice” rather than on producing something. I have seen examples within companies I’ve worked with of people who have clearly stuck around because they’re well liked versus productive, and many, many people have responded to my newsletters on the topic of remote work with similar stories. I've also known truly terrible managers who have built empires, gaining VP and C-level positions, by stealing other people’s work and presenting it as their own, something that, according to research, is the No. 1 way to destroy employee trust .

Arthur C. Brooks: The hidden toll of remote work

These petty fiefdoms are far harder to maintain when everyone is remote. Although you may be able to get away with multiple passive-aggressive comments to colleagues in private meetings or calls, it’s much harder to be a jerk over Slack, email, and text when someone can screenshot it and send it to HR ( or to a journalist ). Similarly, if your entire work product is boxing up other people’s production and sending it to the CEO, that becomes significantly harder to prove as your own in a fully digital environment—the producer in question can simply send it along themselves. Remote work makes who does and doesn’t actually do work way more obvious .

Even if we’re discussing some sort of theoretical, utopian office in which everybody is contributing and everyone gets along, each day during which a business doesn’t fail because of going remote proves that the return-to-office movement is unnecessary. Those in power who claim that remote work is unworkable are delaying an inevitable remote future by using logic that mostly comes down to “I like seeing the people I pay for in one place.” I have yet to read one compelling argument for a company that has gone remote to fully return to the office, mostly because the reasoning is rooted in control and ego.

We have lionized the founders, CEOs, and disruptors who nevertheless have intra-office reputations as abrasive geniuses who treat their workers as eminently replaceable. Because most private companies don’t share revenue, we frequently tie headcount and real estate to success. Removing the physical office forces modern businesses to start justifying themselves through annoying things such as “profit and loss” and “paying customers.”

When you hire someone, you’re (supposedly) hiring them to do a job in exchange for money. But the anti-remote crowd seems to believe that the responsibility of a 9-to-5 employee isn’t simply the work but the appearance, optics, and ceremony of the work. Abusive work cultures grow from this process too. Making people work late is much harder when you can’t trap them in one place with free food, a Ping-Pong table, a kegerator, or laundry services—benefits that you champion instead of monetary compensation. When you are a full-time employee, you might believe that you are owned by a company and should be grateful to its leaders for generously making you show up in their office every day.

Read: Work from home is here to stay

Which brings us back to Hollywood.

Forty-six summers ago, it wasn’t enough to see Spielberg’s first masterpiece, Jaws, and be scared; the whole point was to experience it with a bunch of other people in a shared space and feel something intangible. But our world has changed. Two years after trying to keep streaming movies out of the Oscars, Spielberg’s company, Amblin Partners—the studio behind such made-for-the-big-screen blockbusters as Saving Private Ryan , Jurassic Park , and Back to the Future — signed a deal with Netflix that, if nothing else, will mean more people will soon watch more movies at home .

Across multiple genres and decades, Spielberg has known his audience. The 74-year-old cinematic guru had to understand that whatever reservations he’d had about how and where people watched movies didn’t matter as much as making movies that people would see. Perhaps he realized that the world was evolving faster than he was, or that his judgments of streaming were antiquated and, on some level, anti-creative.

And perhaps we’ll see the business world follow suit.

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Why Working From Home Is Better Essay

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Introduction

Benefits of working remotely, works cited.

Working from home, a worker is at a greater advantage with several benefits than those who work in the office. Employees working remotely have less stress because they do not have to commute daily to work. Besides, working from home guarantees better work-life balance since workers are more flexible in deciding when to open and close their work. In addition, workers operating remotely save more finance and spend less. Overall, employees working from home are likely to be more productive and experience higher growth than those performing their duties directly from the office.

During the COVID-19 period, individuals were forced to work from home following the global lockdown undertaken by most governments as a measure to mitigate the spread of the deadly virus. Despite the restriction, the approach proved essential since many staff found it easier and more convenient to work remotely as opposed to the workplace. Besides, workers recorded a higher productivity rate compared to the periods when they worked in the offices (Ozkan et al. 3). During the short period and the subsequent adoption by most organizations, it demonstrated that numerous hidden advantages characterize working from home and that most people benefited greatly from the measure (Parker et al. 12). While there could be some disadvantages of remote working, recent experience showed that people benefited and enjoyed working from their homes and would still prefer working remotely even after the end of the pandemic.

Saves Money

Additionally, employees working from home save more money and spend less than their colleagues going to the offices. When performing duties at home, a worker is spared unnecessary expenses such as transportation costs. Whether one uses public or private means, the daily movement cost to the workplace is always exorbitant. These costs translate to money (Purwanto et al. 6238). Remote working, therefore, comes with the relief of not incurring the daily transport cost and the related costs of traveling (Wolfer and Sondra). The money meant for transport costs can be channeled to other development projects for personal growth or saved for other things.

Besides the transport cost, individuals going to the workplace incur other expenses, such as refreshments during lunchtime, since not all organizations provide meals for their staff. For enterprises that do not offer food, workers are forced to purchase the meals on their own leading to more expenditure. Even for the businesses which provide mealtimes for their employees, the foodstuffs are never sufficient and often supplemented by other items bought with money from personal accounts (Ojala and Satu 78). Professional wardrobes are additional costs that characterize the workplace since many office jobs require cabinets. Therefore, remote working facilitates money saving by avoiding such expenses.

Improved mental health

Workers working remotely have proven to enjoy better mental health compared to their counterparts working in offices. This is attributed to the peace and relaxation they have at home because they are alone with no manager to bother and quarrel with them. In addition, employees working from home enjoy better mental health because they can have enough sleep, a thing denied by staff in offices (Wolfer). Remote work allows a worker to close work at a convenience and have enough rest.

Facilitates Flexibility and Work Balance

Additionally, employees working from home enjoy more flexibility than those in offices because they can have a personal schedule to balance both official and domestic work. Workers have various errands which they must perform, and at the same time, they are obligated to perform official duties designated by their employees. At the workplace, the staff is confined to one area and a typical work schedule, which makes it challenging to balance both responsibilities. However, remote working provides suppleness as one can set their timetables, which allows them to balance both duties (Ipsen et al. 2). Since an individual is able to organize private plans, they can end their day as they choose and resort to other domestic duties. Similarly, a colleague working remotely can multitask and achieve success domestically and at their respective organizations (Oskarsson et al. 39). For example, staff can suspend their official duties for a while and do laundry work or kitchen work and resume later, a privilege that cannot be obtained while going to the formal workplace.

Working from home is also flexible in the context of providing enough family time. Often, employees who visit the workplace in the morning and return in the evening need more time to spend with family members, leading to a family gap (Oskarsson et al. 40). Family bonds are strengthened by physical presence; be it a parent-kid bond or couple bond, the partners must at least spend some time together (Purwanto et al. 6239). This, however, is different with many families whose members do not work remotely because they spend most of their time in their workplaces and the remaining time sleeping due to exhaustion. After spending time in the workplace and traveling back home, it is evident that one gets tired and takes a nap (Galanti et al. 2). The ripple effect is then felt in the family, which will be the continued absence of the member. A father, for instance, will be considered absent by his kids and even his wife. Such mysteries are therefore prevented by working from home, which provides the needed flexibility and time for family members. Individuals working remotely have enough time with their family members and are always available whenever needed.

Provides Comfort

Furthermore, working from home grants employees some sort of comfort following limited supervision. While performing duties remotely, a worker is comfortable because they are free to do anything at any time and can choose any position for their workstation. Whether under a tree shade, in the bedroom, or wherever, an employee working from home is of their own volition to choose and can relocate the workstation whenever necessary (Wolfer & Sondra 2). Moreover, employees working from home enjoy the comfort of serenity and peace that the home environment provides. At the offices, a worker is likely to engage in brawls with colleagues or managers, something which is avoidable while working remotely. And since they work in comfort, employees are more productive while working from home. Besides, the comfort also gives workers at home a greater chance of personal growth and numerous opportunities.

Less Commuter Stress

Lastly, daily commuting is full of stressors, such as traffic jams and rude travelers. While this is not an everyday occurrence, on bad days, the workers will likely experience long traffic jams or face rude travelers who do not care about their feelings. Such experiences are dull and affect one’s productivity (Oskarsson et al. 40). Remote working, therefore, saves employees from facing such experiences and ensures they remain in high spirits for their respective duties. At home, a colleague will not meet a rude traveler or be held in a long traffic jam which will lower their productivity.

While it is not perfect due to minor challenges like lack of concentration due to possible distractions from family members, especially kids, which might lower one’s efficiency and effectiveness, such challenges can be easily avoided by setting up a home office far from the children’s reach. Another minor challenge that might be attributed to working from home is the lack of creativity and innovation since staff does not share ideas. However, that can be sorted by telephone consultation and engagement among colleagues (Ozkan et al. 2). After all, employees normally have communication outside of the workplace; thus, such information can be used for the same. Some may also argue that working remotely is difficult to supervise, but that is not a problem, provided a worker understands what is required of them. Some employees work well under minimum supervision, as they should. Despite these challenges, working from home remains the better option for many individuals owing to the comfort and tranquility it provides.

Despite the end of the Corona pandemic, workers in America and other countries would still prefer to work from home than work in the offices because it offers flexibility for easier work-life balance. In addition, working from home provides comfort and tranquility facilitated by the home environment. Furthermore, individuals working from home are spared of the commuter stressors like traffic jams that accompany staff going to the workplace daily. Lastly, working from home is economical as it helps employees to save money by avoiding unnecessary expenses like transport costs.

Galanti, Teresa, et al. Work from Home during the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Impact on Employees’ Remote Work Productivity, Engagement, and Stress .” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, vol. 63, no. 7, 2021, p. e426, Web.

Ipsen, Christine, et al. “ Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19 .” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 18, no. 4, 2021, p. 1826, Web.

Ojala, Satu. “ Supplemental Work at Home among Finnish Wage Earners: Involuntary Overtime or Taking advantage of Flexibility? ” Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies , vol. 1, no. 2, 2011, pp. 77-97, Web.

Oskarsson, Emma, et al. “Work-Life Balance among Newly Employed Officers – A Qualitative Study.” Health Psychology Report , vol. 9, no. 1, 2021, pp. 39-48.

Ozkan, Necmettin, Oya Erdil, and Mehmet Şahin Gök. “ Agile Teams Working from Home During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Literature Review on New Advantages and Challenges .” International Conference on Lean and Agile Software Development . Springer, Cham, 2022, Web.

Parker, Kim, et al. “How the Coronavirus Outbreak Has – and Hasn’t – Changed the Way Americans Work.” Pew Research Center , 2020, pp. 1-31.

Purwanto, Agus, et al. “ Impact of Work from Home (WFH) on Indonesian Teachers’ Performance during the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Exploratory Study .” International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, vol. 29, no. 5, 2020, pp. 6235-6244, Web.

Wolfer, Sondra. “ 9 Best Benefits of Working from Home (and 5 Potential Drawbacks) .” The Muse, Web.

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Essay on Working From Home

Students are often asked to write an essay on Working From Home in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Working From Home

Introduction.

Working from home is when employees perform their job duties from their residences instead of going to an office. It’s a flexible way of working, made possible by technology.

Working from home has several advantages. It saves commuting time, provides a comfortable environment, and allows flexibility in work hours.

However, it also has challenges. It requires self-discipline, can lead to feelings of isolation, and may blur the line between work and personal life.

Thus, working from home is a mixed bag. It offers convenience but demands responsibility and good time management.

250 Words Essay on Working From Home

The evolution of work culture.

The advent of technology has revolutionized work culture, with remote work or ‘working from home’ emerging as a viable alternative to traditional office-based jobs. This shift is not merely a temporary response to global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, but a long-term trend driven by the evolving needs of modern workers and businesses alike.

Advantages of Working from Home

Working from home offers several advantages. Firstly, it eliminates commuting, saving both time and money. It also provides flexibility, allowing individuals to tailor their work schedule around personal commitments. This flexibility can lead to improved work-life balance, reducing stress and enhancing overall well-being.

Challenges of Remote Work

However, remote work is not without its challenges. The lack of physical separation between work and personal space can blur boundaries, potentially leading to overworking. Additionally, remote work can result in feelings of isolation and disconnection from colleagues, which can impact morale and productivity.

The Future of Work

Despite these challenges, the future of work is increasingly leaning towards remote work. Companies are recognizing the cost savings from reduced office space and increased employee satisfaction. Meanwhile, employees are seeking greater autonomy and flexibility in their work.

In conclusion, working from home represents a paradigm shift in the way we perceive work. It is not without its challenges, but its benefits for both employers and employees make it a trend that is likely to continue. As we navigate this new landscape, it will be crucial to develop strategies that maximize the benefits of remote work while mitigating its potential drawbacks.

500 Words Essay on Working From Home

Introduction to working from home.

The concept of working from home has gained unprecedented momentum in the past decade, especially during the recent pandemic. It’s a work model that enables employees to execute their tasks from the comfort of their homes, eliminating the need to commute to a physical office.

The Evolution of Remote Work

Previously, the notion of remote work was largely associated with freelancers or those in specific industries. However, the advent of digital technology and the internet has opened up new avenues. With the capability to share information in real-time, businesses of all sizes have begun to embrace this model. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated this trend, making remote work a necessity rather than a choice.

There are numerous benefits to working from home. Firstly, it offers flexibility in terms of working hours and environment, which can lead to increased productivity. It also eliminates the time and stress associated with commuting. Additionally, it can provide a better work-life balance, as employees can spend more time with their families or pursue hobbies.

The Flip Side: Challenges of Remote Work

Despite its advantages, working from home is not without its challenges. The lack of face-to-face interaction can lead to feelings of isolation and can potentially hinder effective communication. Moreover, the blurred lines between personal and professional life can lead to burnout. It also requires a high level of self-discipline and motivation to stay productive in a home environment.

Technological Tools Facilitating Remote Work

As we move forward, it’s clear that working from home is here to stay, at least in some capacity. Companies are increasingly recognizing the benefits of a flexible work model, both in terms of productivity and employee satisfaction. However, to make it sustainable, it’s crucial to address the challenges associated with it.

In conclusion, working from home represents a significant shift in the way we perceive work. It brings with it numerous benefits, but also challenges that need to be addressed. As technology continues to evolve, it’s likely we’ll see even more tools and strategies to make remote work efficient and enjoyable.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

11 Pros and Cons of Work from Home: Exploring the Advantages and Disadvantages

This advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay will explain the pros and cons of working from home.

Discover the advantages of flexibility and increased productivity, alongside the challenges of isolation and blurred work-life boundaries.

Gain valuable insights into the work-from-home phenomenon and make informed decisions about your own professional journey.

Dive into the advantages and disadvantages of remote work, and unlock the key considerations for finding the right balance in this engaging blog post.

Let’s dive into the advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay.

Ah, the glorious freedom of working from home!

Picture this: You roll out of bed, grab a cup of joe, and dive into your work without ever facing the dreaded commute or office small talk.

It’s a dream come true for many of us, and it’s not just about the convenience of staying in our pajamas all day (although that’s definitely a perk).

In this part of the article, we’ll explore the numerous benefits of working from home that go beyond the comfy attire, showing you why embracing the pajama professional life might be the best decision you’ll ever make.

advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay

https://unsplash.com/photos/g9KFpAfQ5bc

From bidding farewell to the dreaded commute to enjoying increased productivity, improved work-life balance, and even saving money, the perks of working from home are undeniable. It’s a lifestyle that grants you the freedom and flexibility to design your work environment and schedule tailored to your preferences and needs.

So, if you’re still on the fence about embracing the pajama professional life, consider the advantages we’ve explored.

The absence of a daily commute allows you to reclaim valuable time, reduce stress, and engage in activities that truly matter to you.

The ability to focus in a distraction-free environment leads to heightened productivity and a sense of accomplishment.

Integrating work and personal commitments seamlessly ensures a healthier work-life balance, nurturing your overall well-being.

Moreover, remote work not only benefits you personally but also has a positive impact on the environment. Reduced transportation results in cost savings and a smaller carbon footprint, making it a win-win for your wallet and the planet.

Of course, working from home has its challenges. Loneliness, the need for self-discipline, and potentially blurred boundaries between work and personal life require careful navigation. However, these challenges can be overcome with the right strategies, such as establishing a dedicated workspace, maintaining regular communication with colleagues , and setting clear boundaries.

More about the disadvantages of working from home later.

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift towards remote work, with many companies recognizing its benefits and embracing hybrid work models. As the world becomes more interconnected, technology advancements make remote collaboration seamless, enabling professionals to thrive in their homes.

Advantages of Working from Home Essay

Say goodbye to the commute.

Let’s face it—commuting can be a soul-sucking experience. Spending hours stuck in traffic or crammed into a crowded train is not exactly the ideal way to start or end your workday.

When you work from home, you bid farewell to the daily commute and say hello to extra time and reduced stress. Imagine reclaiming and using those lost hours for more productive or enjoyable activities. Whether catching up on sleep, exercising, or simply spending quality time with your loved ones, the lack of commuting opens up a world of possibilities.

Increased Productivity

Working from home offers a prime environment for enhanced productivity. You can focus on your tasks without interruptions without the usual office distractions. No more impromptu meetings or colleagues popping by your desk for a chat about the latest reality TV show. Instead, you can create a dedicated workspace tailored to your needs, free from distractions.

Moreover, the flexibility of remote work allows you to structure your day in a way that suits your preferences and energy levels. If you’re an early bird, you can tackle important tasks in the morning; if you’re a night owl, you can burn the midnight oil. You’ll accomplish more in less time by aligning your work hours with peak productivity periods, giving you a sense of achievement and a better work-life balance.

Let’s further explore the pros and cons in this advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay.

Improved Work-Life Balance

One of the most significant advantages of working from home is achieving a healthier work-life balance. Traditional office settings often blur the lines between professional and personal life, making switching off from work-related stress and responsibilities challenging.

When your office is just a few steps from your living room, you have greater control over your schedule. You can integrate personal commitments, such as attending family events, exercising, or pursuing hobbies, into your workday. This flexibility allows you to design a routine that aligns with your individual needs, leading to increased job satisfaction and overall well-being.

Furthermore, remote work saves precious time that would otherwise be spent commuting or getting ready for the office. This newfound time can be utilized for self-care, pursuing personal passions, or engaging in activities that bring you joy.

The result? You feel more fulfilled and energized, ready to enthusiastically tackle professional and personal challenges.

Cost and Environmental Benefits

Working from home can be kind to both your wallet and the environment. When you’re no longer commuting, you save on transportation costs, whether it’s fuel for your car or public transportation fares. Additionally, remote work eliminates the need for a separate work wardrobe, saving you money on professional attire.

Moreover, remote work significantly reduces carbon emissions associated with commuting. Fewer cars on the road translate to cleaner air and a smaller carbon footprint. By embracing remote jobs, you contribute to a more sustainable future and help protect the planet.

Also, one of the small benefits of working from home is that you can spend more time with your pets. Sometimes your dog or cat can feel lonely and that you don’t spend enough time with them. Remote work allows getting to know your pet closer and having quality time together. Basepaws review can also help you to know your pet better.

So, whether you’re a freelancer, a remote employee, or considering negotiating a flexible work arrangement with your employer, the benefits of working from home are waiting for you to embrace them. Say goodbye to the mundane office routine and embrace the freedom, flexibility, and personal fulfillment that come with the pajama professional life.

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The Disadvantages of Working from Home: Balancing Flexibility with Challenges

Let’s continue our advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay by exploring the disadvantages of working from home.

The concept of remote work has gained significant traction in recent years, revolutionizing the traditional office environment.

While working from home offers numerous benefits, such as increased flexibility and reduced commuting time, it is important to recognize that it also comes with its fair share of disadvantages.

In this part of the article, we will explore the potential downsides of working from home, shedding light on the challenges individuals may face in this ever-evolving professional landscape.

Isolation and Lack of Social Interaction

One of the most common drawbacks of working from home is the feeling of isolation and limited social interaction. When employees are physically distanced from their colleagues, they miss out on the spontaneous conversations, brainstorming sessions, and the overall camaraderie that can foster creativity and collaboration. The absence of face-to-face interactions may lead to a sense of disconnection, which can impact job satisfaction and mental well-being.

Blurred Boundaries Between Work and Personal Life

Working from home often blurs the line between professional and personal life, making it challenging for individuals to maintain a healthy work-life balance. With no clear separation between the office space and home environment, it becomes tempting to work longer hours, leading to burnout and decreased productivity. Moreover, the lack of physical boundaries may result in constant interruptions from family members or the inability to switch off work-related thoughts, thereby adding to stress levels.

Distractions and Lack of Focus

The home environment can be full of distractions, ranging from household chores to family responsibilities. The presence of tempting diversions, such as household tasks, television, or social media , can significantly impact an individual’s ability to concentrate on their work tasks. Procrastination becomes easier, and maintaining focus becomes a constant challenge, potentially hampering productivity and overall performance.

Limited Access to Resources and Technology

While technological advancements have made remote work more feasible, it is undeniable that not all employees have equal access to the necessary resources and technology.

In some cases, employees may lack a stable internet connection, have outdated equipment, or face other technological limitations. These disparities can create barriers to effective communication, collaboration, and access to vital tools or software, thus hindering productivity and professional growth.

Reduced Career Development Opportunities

Working remotely can limit an individual’s exposure to various career development opportunities. In a traditional office setting, employees have the advantage of face-to-face interactions, networking events, and informal learning experiences. Remote workers may miss out on these crucial avenues for professional growth, potentially impacting their chances of career advancement and skill development.

Strained Communication and Collaboration

Despite the advancements in communication technology, remote work can still present challenges when it comes to effective collaboration.

Remote employees heavily rely on digital communication tools, such as email, instant messaging, and video conferencing. However, misinterpretations, technical glitches, and limited non-verbal cues can hamper effective communication, leading to misunderstandings and reduced team cohesion.

Building trust and maintaining strong relationships with colleagues and supervisors can be more challenging when working remotely.

Impact on Mental Health and Well-being

The work-from-home setup can have a significant impact on an individual’s mental health and overall well-being. The lack of social interaction, feelings of isolation, and increased blurring of boundaries can lead to heightened stress levels, loneliness, and even depression.

Additionally, the absence of a physically separate workspace may contribute to difficulties in disconnecting from work, preventing individuals from fully unwinding and recharging during their personal time.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Work from Home Essay: FAQ

What are advantages and disadvantages of work from home.

Advantages: No commute, work in your pajamas. Disadvantages: Lack of digital resources, feeling of isolation, home life and work life becomes blurred.

What are disadvantages of working from home?

Lack of digital resources, feeling of isolation, home life and work life becomes blurred.

Conclusion: Advantages and Disadvantages of Work from Home Essay

While working from home offers undeniable benefits, it is crucial to acknowledge and address the disadvantages that come along with it.

The isolation, blurred boundaries, distractions, limited resources, reduced career development opportunities, strained communication, and potential impact on mental health highlight the need for proactive measures to counter these challenges.

Employers and employees must work together to find solutions that foster connectivity, establish clear boundaries, and promote a healthy work-life balance. By recognizing and addressing the disadvantages, we can strive towards a more balanced and productive remote work experience.

As you can see, working from home offers numerous advantages beyond the absence of a dress code. Remote work has become a preferred choice for many professionals thanks to eliminating the commute to improve productivity, achieving a better work-life balance, and contributing to a greener planet.

So, go ahead and embrace the perks of working from home. Your pajamas will thank you! However, working from home offers many benefits that extend far beyond lounging in your favorite PJs.

To recap: The advantages and disadvantages of working from home bring both opportunities and challenges to individuals and organizations alike.

On the positive side, remote work offers flexibility, increased productivity, and reduced commuting time. It allows individuals to create a better work-life balance and offers opportunities for those with physical disabilities or caregiving responsibilities. Moreover, it enables companies to tap into a global talent pool and save costs on office space.

However, there are also downsides to consider. Working from home can blur the boundaries between work and personal life, leading to longer working hours and burnout. The lack of face-to-face interaction may hamper collaboration and team bonding, affecting creativity and innovation. Additionally, the absence of a dedicated workspace can create distractions and hinder productivity.

Ultimately, the decision to embrace remote work depends on individual preferences, job requirements, and the nature of the organization. It is crucial to strike a balance between the advantages and disadvantages, implementing strategies to overcome the challenges while leveraging the benefits.

Whether it’s a hybrid model or a fully remote setup, clear communication, efficient task management, and regular check-ins become crucial to maintaining a productive and connected workforce.

Overall, the rise of work from home represents a significant shift in the way we work. It offers unique opportunities for individuals and organizations to adapt to the changing landscape of the modern workplace.

By carefully weighing the advantages and disadvantages presented in this advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay and implementing effective strategies, we can harness the potential of remote work while mitigating its challenges, ultimately fostering a more flexible, efficient, and balanced work environment.

Readers, please share this advantages and disadvantages of work from home essay so people considering abandoning the 9 to 5 traditional workday discover this post.

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9 Best Benefits of Working from Home (and 5 Potential Drawbacks)

person sitting cross-legged on dark green couch, holding coffee mug and smiling

When I’m stressed during work, I sit on the floor and do some belly breathing or throw on some music for a kitchen dance party where the VIPs are just me and my dog, Joy. I work from home for a technology marketing agency , so I can use these stress-relieving strategies as needed without distracting anyone.

Until recently, the idea of working from home was firmly in “must be nice” territory for most employees—the stuff of wistful conversations during post-work happy hours. The Pew Research Center found that before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 20% of people whose work could be done remotely were working from home most or all of the time.

Since then, the workplace has undergone a seismic shift. Global lockdowns forced all but essential workers to adopt remote work almost overnight. People scrambled to set up home offices and adjust to back-to-back virtual meetings and online collaboration.

As of February 2022, nearly 60% of U.S. workers with jobs that can be done remotely are working from home all or most of the time, according to Pew . And in a Muse user survey conducted that same month, 80.8% of the 4,681 respondents said they’d like to work from home full or part time going forward (with users under 25 being the most likely to say they’d prefer full-time in-office work).

Still, the reality of a 30-second commute from bedroom to home office (or dining room table) is more complex than the fantasy. There are significant advantages to working from home for many, but there are disadvantages and challenges too. Let’s look at the pros and cons of WFH so you can determine where you’ll flourish the most.

9 benefits of working from home

If these advantages spark excitement or “I could get used to that” thoughts, WFH may be a good fit for you. But keep your circumstances in mind—remote work isn’t ideal for everyone.

1. You get greater flexibility in your schedule and your day-to-day life is easier to manage.

With remote work, “I can sleep in a little later. I can get up and make sure the kids are moving along and I can go to the gym every morning,” says Heather Bostwick, VP of Marketing and Analytics at Education Dynamics , a higher education enrollment growth agency. Before the pandemic, remote work wasn’t an option for her; now her company is fully WFH and only maintains office space for monthly meetings.

So Bostwick can take care of the ceaseless laundry pileup that comes with kids during her workday. “I used to have six to eight loads of laundry to do on the weekend and then I’d be exhausted going to work the next week,” she says.

Flexibility shoots to the top of the pros list for me too. I can use my breaks to get dishes out of the way or cut veggies for dinner, which gives me more time to spend with my husband and the kids in the evening.

Some remote jobs may also come with flexible hours, which allow you even more control over when you get your work done in addition to where . This depends on your job and employer, but for me, WFH means I can take an hour or two away from my computer to go to the dentist or pop to the store during business hours. When my kids were younger, WFH meant I could make school events without much scheduling fuss, or easily pick up a sick kid from school with just a quick message to my boss.

My mom has also reached the age where she needs help managing day-to-day activities. I’m grateful for the time with her and for my siblings who share in the challenges and joys of caring for an elderly parent, but the stress of being in the sandwich generation is intense. Remote work helps me cope. I can take a break to meditate, exercise, or go for a walk. I can take a half day (rather than use a full day of PTO) to take her to a doctor’s appointment. Going into an office every day would have made this phase of life overwhelming—if not impossible to sustain.

2. You can ditch the time-consuming commute.

Your daily commute can compound or increase your stress levels as you deal with factors beyond your control, such as rude passengers, vehicle breakdowns, and traffic jams. A longer commute can also reduce job satisfaction and worsen your mental health. For many, a commute can be more stressful than the job itself. And if something goes wrong, that can make you late to work.

Plus, even when things go perfectly, even a relatively short commute of 20 minutes will take 40 minutes out of your day—that’s more than three hours a week. If your commute is longer, it’s easy to see how the lost time can add up. Working from home gives you back that time to use how you want. You could squeeze in more work—but I want better for you. We all need a break, so take that extra time to call a friend, play with your pet, hang with your family, or go out to your favorite spot for dinner.

3. You can complete more work tasks and assignments.

A pre-pandemic experiment conducted with the employees of a Chinese travel agency showed that a group randomly selected to WFH showed a productivity increase of 13%—which was attributed to a quieter work environment and more minutes worked per shift. And a 2021 survey of remote workers found that 6 in 10 reported they’re more productive working from home than they expected to be because they don’t have the commute and may be getting a better night’s sleep. At home, workers also gain back time lost to in-office distractions and interruptions, such as:

The noise and activity of an open office plan
That chatty coworker who has trouble ending conversations
Those impromptu meetings or coffee breaks that run long

That’s not to say that there are no distractions that come with remote work, of course, but for many people, the in-office ones are more disruptive to their productivity.

You’re also able to match your breaks to your natural peaks and dips in focus. “Working from home allows you better control over managing your energy,” says Rachel Wallins, founder of Accelerate Talent Management and a productivity and leadership expert.

If you usually hit an afternoon lull at 2 PM, for example, you can take a quick power nap or go for a walk to refresh yourself for the remainder of the workday. At an office, you might feel you need to ‘power through’ like your coworkers, but taking these micro breaks can increase work engagement and productivity.

4. You can be way more comfortable and cozy.

“I don’t miss pants. I don’t miss jeans. I certainly don’t miss underwire bras. Those are never coming back into my world. Never. Nope. Uh-uh.” says Bostwick, who is now a sports bra aficionado. Day-to-day comfort is personal, but working from home gives you choices beyond business or business-casual looks—especially on days that are light on virtual meetings.

Many people with disabilities, such as chronic back pain or mental illness, can also benefit from WFH gear and settings personalized to meet their needs. An employee with chronic joint pain, for example, may feel more comfortable in their ergonomic home desk chair. A worker with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), can position their desk near a window to get more sunlight. Someone who moves or fidgets often through the day can do so without worrying about distracting others.

For me, greater comfort means shifting back and forth between my desk and a portable standing desk, as well as working on the comfy couch in the living room with my dog in my lap. Among work perks , that’s priceless if you ask me.

5. You spend less money outside of the house.

According to a 2021 survey by Bankrate, 57% of workers said remote work had a positive impact on their finances. For example, I always spent a lot on lattes and lunches when I left the house for work, so I’m saving for sure now that I make my own.

Of course, individual spending will vary, but here’s where you might save:

Commuting: Whether you take public transportation or drive your own car—gas, tolls, and monthly passes for the bus, train, or ferry can add up.
Clothes: A few comfy leggings or joggers, a rotation of relaxed but presentable tops, and you’re good to go. You can get dressed up if you want, but you don’t necessarily have to have a closet full of business garb and professional shoes.
Food: Getting ready for work and making lunch at the same time is great, but not everyone can fit meal prep into their weeks. At home, you’ve got your own fridge with your own favorite snacks and meals at hand. Best of all, you don’t have to write your name on your chow to keep [redacted] from HR from grabbing your yogurt.
Childcare: This depends on your circumstances and your child (or children), but if you’re a parent or caregiver, you might be able to save money on daycare or afterschool programs.

On the flip side, you’re home more often which may mean using more power than you would if you were at the office, for instance, or buying yourself some home-office furniture—like a comfortable chair or desk. If you work from home, ask your employer if they offer any reimbursements to offset one-time purchases like that furniture or recurring expenses like the costs of increased electricity bills or the need to pay for a higher-speed internet package.

6. You can choose where to live because you’re not tied to a city or region.

Approximately 5 million workers moved between 2020 and 2022 because remote work made it possible. No longer connected with a physical office, many fully remote employees could keep their jobs and move closer to family, to a dream location, or to an area with a lower cost of living . (Maybe all three!) Just keep in mind that in some cases—like employers that want you to attend in-person meetings once a week—changing locations may not be ideal. You should also make sure to check that your organization can legally employ someone based in the state or country you’re looking to move to.

7. You’ll enjoy more creative control over your workspace.

At an office, you can add some pizzazz to your cubicle with plants and family pictures and knick knacks—to a point. But in a home office, you can make the space truly your own and ensure it sparks joy for your workday. Go minimalist. Go midcentury. Go steampunk if that’s your style! You can also curate your optimal work environment. Set the thermostat just the way you like it. Choose your favorite music and set the volume to “nightclub” if that helps motivate you. Work in your favorite oversized chair with your legs over the arm. When your surroundings match your work preferences, you’ll be able to get more done.

8. It puts you in charge of reducing your carbon footprint.

With no commute, you contribute fewer greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. At home, you can have more control over the environmental impact of your office. Turn off most of the lights in your home, use surge protectors, and set your office equipment to power-save mode. There are also federal and state incentives to improve the energy efficiency of your home.

Remote work is not, however, the slam dunk for sustainability you might think. Researchers have found sustainability is not an automatic byproduct of WFH—but it can be an intentional one.

9. Remote work provides wider opportunities for diversity and inclusion.

WFH policies can open up more work opportunities to people with barriers to working in an office environment. Remote work can increase job possibilities and improve job satisfaction for:

Minorities who report greater comfort working from home. In a survey by Future Forum , Black employees specifically reported twice as much sense of belonging at their company and a 64% boost in their ability to manage stress when switching to remote work, in part because they don’t have to ‘code-switch’ as often and experience fewer microagressions.
Women who are often the primary caregivers of young children and elderly parents.
People with physical and mental disabilities or chronic health conditions that make it difficult or impossible to commute to work or spend the traditional 9-to-5, Monday to Friday in an office.
People who don’t have the ability to cover the costs of childcare or transportation.
People who don’t live near a company’s physical location. For example, someone who can’t afford to live in a major city or needs to live in a certain area due to personal responsibilities.

5 drawbacks of working from home

Now let’s look at the not-so-awesome aspects of WFH. Many of these may be manageable with some mindset and habit shifts, but be honest with yourself about where you work best—so you make the call that’s right for you.

1. It can be difficult to separate ‘work’ hours from ‘life’ hours.

The boundaries between your job and your life can become blurred when you work from home. According to research from NordLayer , remote employees in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada put in an average of two extra hours of work per day in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As you may know firsthand, when work expands and seeps into your free time like this, it can throw off your work-life balance and accelerate burnout .

Working from home means work and life are woven together, Wallins says. But you can use your time wisely and establish boundaries throughout your day to lessen the effects. She recommends:

Scheduling 45-minute meetings (instead of hour-longs) and using the extra 15 minutes for breaks.
Taking an actual lunch break—away from your desk.
Keeping a consistent day-to-day work schedule that starts and ends at the same time.
Creating a ritual to end your workday. For example, Wallins cleans her office, shuts off her laptop, and then turns it face down until the next morning. Other possibilities include writing your to-do list for work the next morning, taking a walk, or reviewing the workday accomplishments you’re proud of (like a gratitude journal for work ).

2. You could experience isolation and feel disconnected from coworkers.

Loneliness and collaboration challenges were the biggest struggles for remote employees, according to a 2020 report by social media company Buffer. But while isolation from your coworkers may persist if you work from home after the COVID-19 pandemic , you’re not nearly as restricted as you were in the early days of lockdown.

So you’ll have opportunities to counter the impact of isolation by:

Making regular plans with friends and family.
Scheduling in-person meetups with local coworkers (if you have them).
Making time for in person or remote one-on-one or small group meetings with coworkers, which tend to be more relaxed than ‘all hands on deck’ meetings.
Pursuing a passion beyond work. Join a book club. Learn to knit or play guitar. Create a weekend canoe club. Whatever floats your boat.
Bringing more of yourself to work. If you’re comfortable, you can share your passions or other bits of yourself with your colleagues. Show off that sweater you knit. Play guitar during a coworker coffee hour. Start a parent or pet owner group within your company. You’ll feel more connected when you learn what makes your coworkers unique and share your authentic self.

Read More: Yes, You Can Still Make Friends at Work If You’re Remote. Here’s How.

3. You may experience the bias some remote workers report.

In a hybrid work environment, there can be bias against those who go fully remote. For instance, your bosses may not notice and appreciate your accomplishments as much or you may not be pulled into meetings that impact your work. You also miss out on spontaneous chats that can deepen workplace relationships, build trust, and lead to promotions.

How can you counter this? If you’re job hunting, ask companies about how the team communicates, how performance is evaluated and recognized, and what strategies or policies are in place to ensure all workers, including remote employees, have opportunities to advance. They should welcome the questions and have clear answers for you about their efforts. If you think remote workers get passed over for opportunities at your current company, you can raise your concerns, share the research, and advocate for more conscious inclusion of WFH employees with your manager, HR, or a trusted higher up.

4. You may lose the creative spark and speed that comes from in-person collaboration.

“We’re on FaceTime and Zoom every day, but you can’t have the same quick side conversations on a video call,” Bostwick says. In her experience, these impromptu interactions often generated the most creative ideas and problem-solving , and she noticed a loss of productive collaboration when her company first went remote.

To compensate, her company now schedules a full in-office day once a month for face-to-face meetings, brainstorming, and team building . “We had an in-person meeting and a colleague had a brilliant suggestion and within an hour we did a reorganization,” Bostwick says. “That would not have happened within an hour if we were all at home.”

Still, Bostwick says her colleagues are adjusting remote collaboration and creating a remote team culture . As they learn what works (e.g., one-on-one calls), they build on that. When they see what slows them down (e.g., back-to-back-to-back meetings), they adjust.

What do you need more of to be creative at work? Perhaps it’s occasional in-person meetings with your team, if that’s feasible. Perhaps it’s one-on-one online meetings every few days. What do you need less of to do your best work? Possibly back-to-back meetings or meetings without a clear objective. Make a list and consider talking with your manager to try to build a better remote collaboration strategy.

5. You’re surrounded by the temptations of home.

You’re on the last episode of your favorite streaming show. The living room needs tidying. Your spouse also works from home and you’d prefer to talk with them than respond to the 37 new emails in your inbox. You’re not surrounded by these pulls on your attention at an office. (Though there are other distractions to be sure, such as the loud phone talker or the chatty coworker.) There’s also less oversight—if that helps you stay on track in the office.

Wallins suggests consciously enjoying those temptations in small doses (say 10 to 20 minutes) and without guilt. That way you’ll keep them in check. She also recommends creating tiny rituals or events to carry you through the days and weeks so your structure doesn’t exclusively come from meetings and deadlines, which can be demotivating. Enjoyable, at-home rituals could be as simple as walking the dog, doing 10 minutes of yoga, or scheduling a lunch every Thursday with a local friend who also works from home.

“Replicate that trip you used to take with a colleague to the coffee shop at home,” Wallins says, “See people. Sit outside in the sun.”

WFH is here to stay and provides new levels of work-life balance and flexibility for more people. But the pros for some people are cons for others, and vice versa. If you imagine your ideal work environment and pursue (or advocate for) conditions that come closest—you’ll set yourself up for success no matter where you work.

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What if Remote Work Didn’t Mean Working from Home?

An office set up inside of a pickup truck.

In the late nineteen-sixties, the writer Peter Benchley and his wife, Wendy, were looking for a quiet place to live near New York City. They considered Princeton, New Jersey, but couldn’t afford it, so they settled for Pennington, a small community eight miles to the west. It was here that Benchley got to work on his first novel, a sensationalist tale of a great white shark terrorizing a beach town. I’ve long been familiar with the connection between “ Jaws ” and Pennington because I grew up down the street from the house that the Benchleys had bought. Their home was a classic converted carriage house on a sizable property, framed by conifers. As a kid, doing homework in my attic bedroom, I sometimes liked to imagine that Benchley had looked out over a similar lawn down the street, crafting his iconic scenes.

It was only recently that I learned, to my dismay, that Benchley didn’t actually write “Jaws” in his bucolic Pennington home. As John McPhee revealed , in an essay in the magazine last month, he remembers Benchley during these years working in a “rented space in the back of a furnace factory.” A little digging, aided by the Hopewell Valley Historical Society, clarifies that it was Pennington Furnace Supply, Inc., situated on Brookside Avenue, off the north end of Pennington’s Main Street. Years later, Wendy Benchley still remembered the noise: “He had a desk right in the middle of this place where they were making furnaces,” she said. “Bang! Bang! Bang!—and it didn’t bother him.”

Benchley isn’t the only author to abandon a charming home to work nearby in objectively worse conditions. Maya Angelou, for example, would rent hotel rooms to write, asking the staff to remove all artwork from the walls and enter each day only to empty the wastebaskets. She’d arrive at six-thirty in the morning, with a Bible, a yellow pad, and a bottle of sherry. No writing desk was necessary; she’d instead work lying across the bed, once explaining to George Plimpton, in an interview, how this habit led one of her elbows to become “absolutely encrusted” with calluses. David McCullough lived in a beautiful white-shingled house in West Tisbury, on Martha’s Vineyard. The residence included a nicely appointed home office, but McCullough preferred to write in a glorified garden shed in his back yard. John Steinbeck went one step further. Late in his career, he spent his summers at a two-acre property in Sag Harbor (which was put on the market this past winter for $17.9 million). Steinbeck told his editor, Elizabeth Otis, that he would escape this waterfront paradise to instead write on his fishing boat, balancing a notebook on a portable desk.

Professional authors are, in some sense, the original work-from-home knowledge workers. As we approach a post-pandemic world in which telecommuting will be more common , we might observe with concern how far these writers are willing to go to escape having to work in their actual homes.

The retreat to eccentric near-home workplaces has been a common experience during the pandemic , and we’ve learned that performing useful cognitive work is a fragile endeavor, one in which environment matters. “I don’t want anything in there,” Angelou said, when elaborating on her spartan hotel habit. “I go into the room and I feel as if all my beliefs are suspended. Nothing holds me to anything.” The home is filled with the familiar, and the familiar snares our attention, destabilizing the subtle neuronal dance required to think clearly. When we pass the laundry basket outside our home office (a.k.a. our bedroom), our brain shifts toward a household-chores context, even when we would like to maintain focus on our e-mail , or an upcoming Zoom meeting, or whatever else that needs to get done. This phenomenon is a consequence of the associative nature of our brains. Because the laundry basket is embedded in a thick, stress-inducing matrix of under-attended household tasks, it creates what the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin describes as “a traffic jam of neural nodes trying to get through to consciousness.” Angelou, by shifting her work to a hotel room with bare walls, was cultivating an effective mental space to compose poetry by calming her relational-memory system.

Home is also rich in salient interruption. The human brain is adept at filtering out superfluous incoming information, but if this superfluous information is relevant to us it becomes difficult to ignore. The cognitive-science pioneer E. Colin Cherry famously dubbed this “the cocktail party problem”—in reference to the common experience of suddenly cueing your attention to the sound of your own name popping up in conversation across the room at a noisy party—and it helps explain why it’s possible to work productively for hours at a bustling coffee shop, only to have your attention hijacked when you hear a familiar topic arise in a neighboring conversation. Viewed through this perspective, your home, at times, can feel like a coffee shop in which all the patrons are talking about things that you care about. Benchley’s willingness to put up with the bangs and clangs of furnace assembly makes more sense once you learn that he had two young kids in the house during this period. The sound of hammers is not nearly so arresting as the sound of your own kids’ whining.

Historically, writing was one of only a small number of professions that required demanding cognitive work outside the context of an office or workshop. The coronavirus pandemic has radically increased the amount of knowledge work that will be conducted at home, with one recent survey of hiring managers predicting that more than twenty-five per cent of the United States workforce will remain remote next fall. The same motives that drove Angelou to a bare-walled hotel room and Benchley to a furnace-supply company will now suddenly apply at a large scale. This matters. Many workers won’t be returning to an office anytime soon, but having them relocate their efforts entirely to their homes for the long run might be unexpectedly misery-inducing and unproductive. We need to consider a third option for our current moment, and if we look to authors for inspiration then one such alternative emerges: work from near home.

Here’s my proposal: organizations that allow remote work should not only encourage these employees to find professional spaces near (but distinct from) their homes—they should also directly subsidize these cognitive escapes. The cost need not be prohibitive. If we turn back to our author examples, we see that a workspace doesn’t need to be aesthetically pleasing, or well-equipped, or air-conditioned (or even have walls or a roof!) in order to support better work than what’s possible at home. A co-working space, a small office above a Main Street store, a rented garage apartment, or even a spruced-up shed can enable a much more satisfying and effective experience tackling cognitive work than the laptop on the kitchen table, or the home-office desk in the bedroom. Not all work needs to be completed in these near-home locations—Steinbeck, for example, had a standard office that he used in addition to his fishing boat—but simply having the opportunity to reset your environment when needed can make a big difference for the type of efforts typical of this new class of remote workers.

The idea of subsidizing W.F.N.H. efforts is not novel. Last fall, a startup in the U.K. called Flown began developing what it describes as an Airbnb for undistracted knowledge work. The company’s home page features enviable locations, such as a room in the Cotswolds with a desk facing a floor-to-ceiling picture window overlooking a meadow, available for short-term rent. As the founder of Flown, Alicia Navarro, explained to me, when we talked on the phone, the target for these rentals is not individuals but large organizations that can buy time in bulk to support their employees.

We should expect that such schemes will generate resistance. As offices reopen, there’s an increasing pressure from management around incentivizing workers to return to their desks, including both perks for those who come back and cuts for those who do not. Facebook and Twitter, for example, made headlines last spring when they announced that they would reduce the paychecks of newly remote employees who decide to permanently relocate outside the San Francisco Bay Area. Given this corporate stance, the idea of offering an extra benefit to those remaining remote seems unlikely, but the science on this topic implies that leaving remote workers to fend for themselves at home is myopic. If an organization plans to allow remote work, the extra cost to subsidize the ability of workers to escape household distraction will be more than recouped in both the increased quality of work produced and the improved happiness of the employees, leading to less burnout and reduced churn. Strictly from the perspective of dollars and cents, W.F.N.H. is likely a superior policy to W.F.H. It’s an up-front investment that promises strong returns in the long run.

Admittedly, some of my enthusiasm for the W.F.N.H. concept comes from personal experience. After nearly a decade of commuting from my home in Takoma Park, Maryland, to the campus of Georgetown University, where I teach, the shift last March to full-time remote work felt abrupt. As a professor with a flexible schedule, I had always spent some time at home, but the sudden demand to do everything—from teaching and writing to faculty meetings and radio and podcast interviews—from my house strained my ability to concentrate (and also my three kids’ ability to stay quiet while I was lecturing or live on the air). Last August, I finally relented and leased a modest office above a restaurant in Takoma Park’s small downtown, which is a few blocks from where I live. The space is not luxurious; it features few windows, and each afternoon music from the restaurant patio below rattles the panes. Like Peter Benchley so many decades earlier, I now leave a perfectly lovely house, with its light-filled rooms and comfortable furniture, to instead go sit on a used office chair, staring at an undecorated wall, ignoring the clangs and clamor of the diners below. I no longer work from home—I work from near home. And I’ve never felt more productive.

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WFH: Work from home and its culture

According to the Global State of Remote Work , 40% of companies are hybrid, meaning they allow their employees to work in the office or remotely. Since more and more companies are allowing remote work, WFH is becoming a popular acronym. Let’s dive in and learn the meaning of WFH and why it’s important for people who work remotely.

WFH meaning

WFH means an employee is working from their house, apartment, or place of residence, rather than working from the office. Many companies have a WFH policy, or remote work policy, that allows their employees to work from home either full-time or when it’s most convenient for them.

A remote work policy is an agreement that outlines when and how employees can work from locations other than the office. These policies can be temporary or permanent. Remote work policies describe who can work remotely, best practices to follow, and the legal rights of remote employees.

Work from home, telecommuting, remote work, or virtual work — what are the goods it offers?

Remote access

The most common type where the employee spends most of his/her time working in the office and WFH is something they do only occasionally. Employees are given laptops, cell phones, and access to the corporate network to enable them to perform work and attend meetings outside of business hours.

Telecommuting

Occasional work from home during business hours. Some companies allow their employees to WFH one day/week as a routine practice (NB: the best day for that is Wednesday). The employee typically has some sort of designated workspace in the home, although it often isn’t a full home office (perhaps just a desk in a guest room).

Full-time teleworkers

Most common with sales, consulting, and field service roles where primary job responsibilities are outside the company’s offices at a customer site. It doesn’t require the workspace assigned in the company offices. For those teleworkers that WFH primarily, they often have a dedicated “home office” space (a separate room in the home) that is equipped with all of the office furniture, supplies, and resources that one might find in a company office building.

Virtual workforce

These are the entire business functions that work from home full time. IT systems, business processes, and management practices are optimized for a distributed workforce. Meetings take place via conferencing systems instead of in conference rooms. Documents are shared electronically instead of printed. Workflows are enabled via IT systems instead of physical interaction.

Some companies are entirely virtual with no physical office at all, or maybe just a small space for company leaders to meet. Other companies leverage a virtual workforce setup for functions like customer service (answering phones and emails). In contrast, other functions like product development, finance, and administration work in traditional office settings.

WFH backlogs

Many employers understand the benefits of allowing employees to work from home. In some cases, your business might need to implement a remote work policy quickly and effectively. While the advantages of remote work are growing increasingly clear, many employers still aren’t prepared to support flexible work policies.

Wrong determination of how people will work remotely:

Will a remote work increase the success of a certain role?
How will remote work affect the culture and collaboration among your teams?
What tools, resources, and strategies are a must-have to work effectively?
Do the remote workers need additional training and resources?
Who will manage a remote employee?
Will remote work impact taxes or benefits for the company or employees in different states or countries?

Lacking tools for successful and secure work:

Tool for communication with the rest of the team
Tool for video conferencing and virtual meetings and brainstorms
Tool that allows remote employees to be clearly seen and heard
Separate technology or equipment to maintain an effective home workspace, e.g. a second monitor or printer
Reimbursement for purchases of necessary equipment for the home offices
Cybersecurity to ensure data privacy. While some employees might be able to operate using public Wi-Fi networks, others might need to stay at home or in a more secure co-working space to ensure data safety.
Manager 1:1
Team all-hands meetings
Client kick-off meetings
Performance reviews
Employee learning and development activities
Clear documentation of what is expected and achieved
Availability policies about when employees are expected to be online
Collaboration and socializing.

Performance measurement

Unlike a traditional office setting, it’s difficult to see what people are working on when remote. Good measurement will focus on what managers expect from their employees and how they will define success.

With 100% certainty, the performance must be tracked using project management software, e.g. Trello, Asana, Office 365, ClickUp, Asana, ProofHub, Workzone, Podio, Wrike, Meistertas.

Also, since every role is different, so measures of success are different for every team. Hence, results-oriented metrics can include the number of projects finished in a week as well as the number of hours worked.

In case you think that remote workers can manage their deadlines by themselves, do not rely on this. It is the duty of a supervisor either to set or improve clear deadlines and goals for employees. Clear communication reduces the chance of missed deadlines or work that isn’t up to par.

So, what’s the line on this?

Be up-to-date. Remote work is a beneficial aspect of the 21st-century workplace. Enabling remote work ensures both the employees and the business reap the rewards.
Be human. No matter what technologies you have at your disposal, human beings crave (virtual or live) face-to-face connections for brainstorming, planning, and having fun. Do not get left out of discussions.
Be productive. Just because remote workers work more than 40 hours, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re maximizing their productivity during that time. Find the metric that’s most useful to your work or team so priorities are clear.
Be on time. Do not overwork, you are already on the job 24/7.
Be positive. WFH employees enjoy higher company loyalty, job satisfaction, and morale because they are better positioned to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Be honest. Analyze work for its quality regularly. If things are starting to slip, it might be a sign that there are weaknesses in your remote work policy.

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adapting your culture to remote employees

How to create a work-from-home culture that actually works

Lucid Content

Reading time: about 7 min

For many workers today, a world where interdepartmental memos were physical papers sent from floor to floor is a reality only represented in period television shows and movies. The workplace has completely evolved.

The traditional 9-to-5 schedule that Boomers and Gen Xers followed is on it's way out, along with the days of being restricted to a company network in one office.

And with that growth comes unrestricted work environments and cloud solutions that enable work to happen outside the workplace.

This shift can present challenges for a company, such as finding the right work-life balance in an always-on culture, choosing the right technologies to help get the work done, and managing remote employees.

If you're in a leadership role, you need to keep your employees and their success top of mind as your company adapts. Here are some tips on you can foster a culture that supports remote employees.

Encourage in-office employees to adopt a remote culture

Company initiatives must become a part of internal company culture if there’s hope for widespread success and adoption—this is even more important with remote workforce management.

Most organizations today have access to the tools and solutions necessary to make remote work feasible and productive, but if policies and procedures aren’t adopted and welcomed fully by employees and leaders who work primarily in the main office, then remote work will not succeed.

Encourage collaborative work between those in-office and those who work remotely, starting with these methods:

Always ensure every single meeting is available to everyone on platforms like Zoom, Google Hangouts, or Skype. Your co-workers may not be physically present, but reacting to discussions and ideas through visual meetings creates a warmer, more collaborative atmosphere for employees. Video conferencing requires some work at the outset, and it’s well worth the investment to have the right technology.

Be flexible with meeting times, particularly recurring meetings. It can be tricky to accommodate time zones across the world, but by keeping everyone’s schedules in mind, each employee will feel valued.

Be deliberate and clear on expectations so employees—both remote and in-house—know how, where, and when communication occurs. Teams can’t be expected to collaborate efficiently if a team member seems to go MIA from responding to Slack messages or isn’t up to speed on the company-adopted solution where progress is tracked.

Additionally, an easy way to build both team productivity and morale is to provide a dedicated communication channel that’s direct-manager-free. This gives workers the space they need to share with each other while also building bonds.

Learn how to improve the effectiveness of your meetings with remote employees.

Incorporate cloud solutions people can access from any device

Giving everyone employee access to their work across all devices, wherever they are, is critical in setting the stage for remote workers and in-office workers to be able to work efficiently.

Whether it’s a matter of managing remote employees training, facilitating remote team communication, or simply getting work done, cloud solutions are a must-have and have changed the way people work in exponential ways. These solutions can be as simple as document and sheets intended for collaborative work or as sophisticated as work management tools that drive innovation across multiple teams.

In providing an atmosphere where one can keep tasks and projects progressing from any device, an organization empowers its workforce to get the job done in a way that fits the way people work and live their lives today.

Document everything and make it accessible to all employees

When a company has employees across multiple states, and even multiple countries (sometimes even continents), knowing exactly what is expected can start to break down, leading to serious deficiencies. When a company has specific documentation that’s clear, easy to understand, and accessible for every employee regardless of where they place their computers, expectations are clear and better results achieved.

Every company has critical processes unique to their business, and every company has important information that must be readily available, especially in the event of a crisis. For example, if a company’s network goes down in one office, employees from other offices have the ability to help fix the problem remotely—all because the setup was documented and easily accessed remotely.

Clearly define roles and responsibilities

Just as an expectation for communication is critical, so is knowing who owns which stage of a project or which portion of a deliverable. Additionally, setting expectations for how team members work together to accomplish a goal is best when set ahead of time. It’s not uncommon for most workers to experience a duplication of effort at some point in their career—even when those efforts are taking place within the same building! It’s frustrating for both managers and employees, as time feels wasted and employees may even feel undervalued.

When teams need to collaborate remotely, a beginning step of every project should always be classifying and determining ownership. Roles and responsibilities become more clear when you can visualize processes from start to end. This kind of visibility is good for any team, but is even more critical when you’re managing employees in different locations. Clear processes also help avoid unnecessary (and ultimately costly) duplication, while also promoting a stronger collaborative atmosphere and team relationship.

Establish clear performance metrics to be reviewed often

A typical challenge when bringing in-house and remote workers together can be managing expectations. Output and deliverables should always be expected on an even playing field from all team members, but this isn’t always easy to do. When managing remote employees, consider their contributions in the same way internal contributions are considered, and manage to those expectations accordingly.

Documentation outlining these expectations helps ensure adoption from everyone. This also means checking in and reviewing work on a consistent cadence will all team members. It will keep the team performing optimally while also fostering a strong culture of collaborative success.

Include remote employees in company events and culture

The International Data Corporation expects remote employees to make up around 72% of the American workforce by 2020. Whether they work in sweatpants at home or joggers in the office, the value remote workers bring to the table is no longer in question.

There is, however, something to be said about helping a team feel like a team, and that can be difficult to accomplish in a remote setting.

To help remote and in-house workers collaborate as a team and build bonds of camaraderie that strengthen an organization, take a couple of steps to create opportunities for inclusion. When financially possible, give new employees the opportunity to see your main office and to meet the coworkers they’ll be working with face-to-face. Host events or meet-ups during the year where everyone can be present and included. If events like a weekly company lunch are on the calendar, help provide lunch for the remote workers and be sure to have a Zoom or Skype camera and microphone to help them feel like they’re there.

A typical business saves $11,000 per year per remote worker. Investing just a small portion of that into bringing the company together as one will ultimately improve productivity, build the team, and grow a positive company culture that every worker can feel proud of.

Want additional ideas on how to include your remote employees in team building?

For some additional ideas on how to include your remote employees in team building, take a look at this list .

Building a team is never easy, especially when you want top talent regardless of where they live. Managing remote employees makes it even more complicated. Today’s workforce is primed for this kind of work, however, and when implementing some best practices, an organization can see incredible results.

Ultimately the key is to treat all team members as essential members—in-house or remote—and give them the tools they need to succeed. Investing in a workplace culture that’s supportive, conducive, and even encouraging to remote work will allow your company to grow—and your employees to work in a way that makes sense for both their careers and their lives.

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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Work From Home vs Work From Office: Which is Better?

Cats vs Dogs, Cricket vs Football, Working out vs Netflix; everyone has their own preferences and reasons behind those preferences vary from person to person. The preference comparison that has taken the corporate world by storm, especially in 2022, is work from home vs work from office- which working environment brings out the maximum potential of the worker and the organization

This debate or group discussion has been around ever since the world started shifting towards digital technology as its primary mode of consuming, with proponents of both sides providing conflicting yet sensible arguments for their stance. Those who prefer work-from-home (WFH) setups argue that it gives their routines some much-needed flexibility, while supporters of the work-from-office school of thought propound that the entire point of an office environment is to create an atmosphere that encourages effort and promotes teamwork.

However, this discussion is no longer one that is open to deliberations at present. Thanks to the pandemic that gripped the world, work from home vs work from office seem like a redundant discussion as the former has become the norm for most companies. The question that is now being posed, is this- which method is going to be adopted moving forward

Work From Home vs Work From Office: Which One to Choose

This article attempts to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of both and give you a balanced perspective on what the future of work culture is going to look like.

Boost Your Productivity
Communicate Face-to-Face
The Right Networking
Boosts Your Mood
Understanding the Company Better
Better Time Management
Cost-effective

Rigid Organizational Rules
No Control over the Work Environment
Long Commute
No Comfy Blankets
May Experience more Work-Related Stress

Save Time on Commute
Save Money on Commute
Better Work-Life Balance
Reduce Carbon Footprint
Location Independence

Lack of Community and Teamwork
Burnout
Easily Distracted
No Organizational Growth
Toxic Productivity \
Lack of Proper Office Equipment

Work From Home vs Work From Office: Face Off Between The Two

Picture this: youve woken up at around 9am and have been employed in your current position for a couple of months now. Your work hours begin at 9:30, but the commute is going to take at least an hour. The next image that pops up in your mind is that of a disgruntled employer who is reevaluating his decision to hire you, isnt it

Working From Office: Advantages & Disadvantages

Despite the many merits of working from home, the fact remains that the office space is sacred. Well, let us continue to look at work from home vs work from office gd and know more.

Advantages of Working From An Office

Rather than simply providing an isolated space where employees contribute towards the growth of an organization, the importance of offices lie in the kind of output they generate:

1. Communication

Face-to-face communication is the clearest and most productive form of communication in a corporate setting. Its not only beneficial when planning for business, it also strengthens relationships and rapport with other employees. The kind of relationship-building that happens when you sit next to someone or bump into each other at the coffee machine cannot be found anywhere else. The chain of command, the daily tasks that you need to fulfill- they all fall into a seamless communication structure which identifies and corrects shortcomings almost as soon as they are detected and ensures that only the best output is generated.

2. Management

Every company has a definite structure which is indisputable, no matter the circumstances under which one works. Every employee is answerable to a higher authority and it is through meticulous coordination and feedback that the ideal output is created by an organization. This cycle is only possible when the manager is on the floor with the workers, keeping an eye on what is going on, spotting errors as soon as they are made, giving precise directions to a struggling employee and regulating the overall workflow. The moment things go digital, management becomes a hassle, and work is more often than not either subpar or delayed.

3. Office Space Needs

Working from home can cause a lack of business inventory or storage, leading to space constraints. Renting out office spaces can be beneficial for small businesses in order to grow their business. Especially, coworking spaces because, they offer varied office spaces at affordable prices. The small businesses can focus on scaling their business in manifolds, considering the easy availability of office inventory. The productivity also increases when you are in an office setup that heavily inspires innovation and creativity.

Disadvantages of Working From Office

While there are certain obvious reasons to keep going to your offices, there are obvious disadvantages as well.

1. Rigid Organizational Rules

In an office setup, you get to decide very little. Your work hours are fixed, your commute is fixed, and your scope of work is more or less predictable as well. Working from an office is all about following a strict office timetable. No matter your personal problems or that are circumstances working against you, come rain or sun, you must be at your desk every day before your superiors notice a delay.

The ever-mounting pressure only serves to weaken your mental and physical health, making you more susceptible to a burnout.

2. Work Environment

One of the key aspects of the work from home vs work from office debate is the kind of work environment the organization fosters. It is no surprise that to survive in a corporate setting, one needs to have skin as thick as hide. Your work environment has the power to make or break your productivity-streak and motivation.

Employees dont have much of a choice in or control over their work environment within an office setting. Whether it is an annoying co-worker or other logistical issues, you just have to go along with it. At home, one has the option to optimise their workspace as per their requirements and preferences.

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Working From Home: Advantages & Disadvantages

Let us discuss the Pros and Cons of Work From Home.

Advantages of Working From Home

There are many such scenarios where a work from home setup is beneficial for both the employer and the employee:

1. Reduced/No Commute

One of the major positives of working from home is the elimination of commute. On an average, people in India spend at least 2 hours in a day, traveling to and from work. This not only wastes time they could otherwise be spending productively, it also hampers work-life balance greatly.

If a person works a regular 9-to-5 (or 6) job and is spending 7% of their day in traffic, its natural for them to feel like they dont have a life outside of work. However, when your work can be done from the comfort of your couch, it doesnt seem as cumbersome as before.

2. Better Work-Life Balance

It is extremely important to realize that work is not the be-all-and-end-all of things. There is a life that you have outside work, but sitting in an office for almost half of your day makes that seem like a lie. Moreover, a rigid schedule packed with work can cause employees to burn out rather quickly.

Most employers who provide their employees with the option to work from home also give them the flexibility to choose their working hours, which means that workers can start and end their day as they choose, as long as their work is complete and leads to strong outcomes. This control over your work schedule is invaluable when it comes to attending to the needs of your personal life.

3. Saves Money and Reduces Carbon Footprint

Working from home cuts costs for both sides- the employee is not required to spend money on traveling, food and other miscellaneous costs they occur throughout a working day; meanwhile, corporations save big on energy spendings and other related expenses which would have been unavoidable in an up-and-running office setup.

While these steps are a boon for your wallet, they are also a blessing for the planet- reduced commute implies fewer vehicles on roads, which inadvertently contributes towards making our environment cleaner; a sore need of the hour.

Disadvantages of Working From Home

So there are some serious merits to working from home. However, it is not without its challenges:

1. Teamwork and Organizational Growth

By its very nature, working from home is a hindrance to teamwork. To make things easier for employees, work schedules are usually fragmented according to their job descriptions and as long as their daily quotas are met, things can flow smoothly. However, a single obstacle can set the entire team off-track.

Coordinating with multiple people over the phone or via video calls, while possible, is an inefficient way of tackling issues because it does not allow face-to-face interactions. It takes a lot of time to get ideas across for approval over a Zoom call where 10 other people are competing for screen time. Thus, Working from Home can dampen teamwork and lead to disarray.

2. Productivity Trap

Popular polls will tell you that a majority of people feel like they are much more productive when working from home. However, but this feeling is only translated into actions when you have a set routine- which is integral for maintaining a steady stream of output. While the trappings of home are comforting, that very aspect can turn out to be counter-productive.

Procrastination can blossom unbridled at home, or worse, you might find yourself overexerting yourself. Working by yourself can also cripple your creativity. Thus, working from home doesnt always guarantee results.

3. Lack Of Office Equipment

Nearly 33% of the people who work from home also dont have the necessary access to office equipment such as high-speed internet, fax/copier machine or a high-end laptop which also adds to their distress while working from home as they have a hard time replicating their work environment at home.

Work From Home vs Work From Office: Which is Better

The work from home vs work from office debate is one that perplexes even those who benefit from either school of thought, because the merits of the other are too lucrative to overlook. However, we believe the answer might lie in striking a balance between the two. The following paragraph would work the best for work from home vs work from office group discussion.

Dividing the working week into days where employees work from home and days where they have to report to the office can not only maintain the positives of a work-from-home environment, it can eliminate the stifling of creativity and flow of work in an organization. On days that employees visit the office, brainstorming and meetings can run asunder and these ideas can be translated into the finished output at home. This gives both employers and employees the opportunity to have a desirable work-life balance, and provides the ideal system of work optimizer for the future.

FAQs on Work From Home Vs Work From Office

The frequently asked questions on work from home or work from office are given below:

Is working from home more productive than working in an office It is very difficult to estimate employees productivity when they are working in different environments. However, many research studies have shown that people who work home are more productive than the people who work from Office. Hence, most of the people choose work from home to increase their productivty which comes with benefits such as enhanced flexibility, stress-free etc.,

Is work from home better than work from office Both work from home and work from office has its own advantages and disadvantages. If you wish to cut-down the commute time and increase productivity, then work from home is better. However, if you focus on better collabaration then working from office is better. Hence work from home vs work from office has its own set of pros and cons.

Why is working in office better Working from office is better, if you want to collabrate with your collegaues. Working from office allows their employees to collect or access the data as qucikly as they can.

What are the pros and cons of working in an office The pros of working in an office include the ability to collaborate with colleagues in person, access to resources and technology, and a shared sense of camaraderie. The cons include needing to commute, being distracted by office chatter, and having less flexibility in scheduling.

How do I do a group discussion on work from home vs work from office A great way to facilitate a group discussion on work from home versus work from office is to start by having participants list out the pros and cons of each option. Have them discuss the benefits and drawbacks with each other, then use a collaborative brainstorming session to come up with ideas on how to make the most of either option. You could also refer to relevant research and studies on the topic to provide more context for the discussion.

Top 9 Disadvantages Of Working From Home That Everyone Should Know
Top 11 Tips To Improve Work From Home Productivity

Working from home (Corrected Essay)

Some say that it would be better if the majority of employees worked from home instead of traveling to a workplace every day. Do you think the advantages of working from home outweigh the disadvantages?

Office has no longer been the only work place since many people are considering working from home. Some may argue the majority of employees should change their work place from office to home. In my opinion, the benefits of working from home can surely surpass the drawbacks due to the following reasons:

The first sentence is not accurate. It implies that people did not work from home in the past; however, throughout history, many people did work from home, for example, the classical novelists and artists.

“ Can surely ” is an informal expression and does not contribute anything to the preciseness of your writing.

The correct verb to follow the word “benefit” is not “ to surpass ”, but rather “ to offset ”, “ to outweigh ”, or “ to exceed ”.

Do not end your sentence with a colon ( “:” ), unless you want to provide a list of items immediately after that.

Working from home is a lot more comfortable for lots of people. Employees can save a great deal of time and money since they do not have to travel so often, which means people will have more time for work and for themselves, too. Less travelling will also help reduce traffice traffic jam congestion and pollutants to our environment environmental pollution . Besides, working at home does not mean staying inside all day long, people can choose to work in their garden or backyard, wherever makes them feel convenient to work. Moreover, employees are under less stresses stress since they get to decide when to work and when to take rest with a flexible working schedule . These things will help giving out better perfomance to tasks.

Words like “comfortable”, or “convenient” are too generic to use in an IELTS writing context. Generally, it’s better to use other words.

Lengthy phrases like “a great deal of time and money” (7 words) are considered as informal and ambiguous. Try to use shorter expressions, for example “time-saving and cost-efficient” (3 words only).

In a formal context, “ traffic congestion ” is more preferrable than “ traffic jam ”. When being alone, the word “ jam ” can be understood as a type of food. It’s always better to use a word that only has one meaning, regardless of the context.

The third sentence in this body paragraph is an example of poor cohesion. “ Traffic jam ” is not parallel to “ pollutants to our environment ”. “ Traffic jam ” is a condition (abstract), not a physical material (touchable by human) like “ pollutants ”. Therefore, you need to use another condition that is parallel to “ traffic jam ” (“ environmental pollution ”)

The fourth sentence (“ Besides, working at… ”) should be placed in the second body paragraph. The author is tailoring his ideas by providing the advantages of working from home in the first body paragraph, then listing the disadvantages in the second body paragraph while attacking those disadvantages notion at the same time. This kind of idea (“ to play the devil’s advocate ”) is good, but the execution isn’t. Insufficient coherence like this will hamper your score in Coherence & Cohesion criterion.

“Stress” as in “psychological stress” is an uncountable noun.

Try to improve the conciseness of your essay by rewritting a sentence clause (S+V) into a noun phrase. For example, “ since they get to decide when to work and when to take rest ” can be shorten into “ with a flexible working schedule ”.

The last sentence is redundant and ungrammatical.

To be fair, There are still some disadvantages that home-working could bring of teleworking . For instance, working from personal space will reduce direct face-to-face interactions among colleagues. But However, the problem is solved thanks to the Internet. As for now, people from around the globe can easily contact and work with others from distances. Another drawback is that some people may get distracted from work by external factors. This situation requires employees to be highly awared awarded of what they should and should not do for their paid jobs.

The accurate way to describe the act of working from home is not “ home-working ”, but rather “ teleworking ” or “ telecommuting ”. The author has miss his chance to improve the Lexical Resource score.

Generally, in a writing context, do not start your sentence with a short subordinate conjuction (“ and ”, “ or ”, “ but ”, “ for ”).

The third sentence in this paragraph is very unclear, especially when the followed sentence does not provide a good explanation. The author has to elaborate more on the Internet’s merits (social softwares such as “ instant messaging ”, “ collaborative software ”, etc)

The author has failed to provide a counter-argument for the notion of “ people may get distracted from work by external factors ”. Not to mentions he does not elaborate what is the “ external factors ”. Again, weak cohesion.

Do not simply stating “ this ” as a sentence subject. This type of grammatical mistake is called “unclear antecedent”, or “unclear aphoric noun”, and should be avoid by extending the subject with a word like “ condition ”, “ situation ”, “ issue ”, etc.

In conclusion, working from home should be encouraged because the advantages overcome the disadvantages.

The conclusion is coherent with the introduction and the two body paragraphs. Though, it is a little bit too short.

(Words: 261)

Overall: 6.0

Task Response: 6

✓ addresses all parts of the task although some parts may be more fully covered than others (the author has written more than 250 words and addressed the topic question)

✓ presents a relevant position although the conclusions may become unclear or repetitive

✓ presents relevant main ideas but some may be inadequately developed/unclear

Coherence and Cohesion: 6

✓ arranges information and ideas coherently and there is a clear overall progression (the ideas in each paragraphs are coherent with eachother)

✓ uses cohesive devices effectively, but cohesion within and/or between sentences may be faulty or mechanical

✓ may not always use referencing clearly or appropriately (the author usually fails at providing good supporting evidence for his argument)

✓ uses paragraphing, but not always logically (the fourth sentence in Body Paragraph 1 should be placed in Body 2 instead)

Lexical Resource: 5

✓ uses a limited range of vocabulary, but this is minimally adequate for the task (all the vocab used in this essay are very generic) ✓ may make noticeable errors in spelling and/or word formation that may cause some difficulty for the reader

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: 6

✓ uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms

✓ makes some errors in grammar and punctuation but they rarely reduce communication

----------------------------------------------------------

This essay is corrected by Anh Tran - Let's Write Something Group .

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Working from home advantages and disadvantages essay

Due to technologies working from home and remotely is easier than ever. Whether you work as a programmer, writer, customer support, freelancer, blogger, teacher, and consultant you can take advantage of working from home.

But along with the advantages, there are certain disadvantages of working at home. While if you work from home it’s good for employers to reduce the infrastructure cost and increase productivity. And it was very important during the covid-19.

Still, there are various new companies and startups that are more willing to build hybrid (home and office) work environments and cultures. If you’re working at home and bored then you need to be aware of the disadvantages so that you can make certain changes in your schedule and it’s also good for those who want to work from home.

But those working at the office or unaware of the advantages or disadvantages can find this post useful as well.

Advantages of working from home:

1. saves time and money:.

Doing office work at home will save you time. You don’t have to travel. Not you will be late and drive in a hurry! Not you will be stuck in a traffic jam. Nor do you have to participate in crowd quarrels.

All of this will save time and money. This will benefit you financially, mentally, and physically.

For example, if you have to spend 1 hour daily visiting the office and coming back from the office to home, then you can use this time for meditation, exercises, and learning something new that you never learned.

You can use or invest the money that you saved from petrol or taxi services into mutual funds or SIP. And you also contributed to the reduce the pollution.

All of these are the most practical advantages. And those who finish work very late at night can sleep 30 minutes more in the morning.

2. Able to spend time with kids:

Most of us are busy with entrepreneurship and professional life. The expectations of our family and self from us are higher. And taking family responsibility and raising kids is not that easy. Especially when prices are at their highest level. And all of this and professional competition make life like a machine. Everything has a schedule, pre-planned programs, analysis, fixed prices, processes, and patterns of input and output.

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Dealing with all is a compulsion and most of the time we make or we’re programmed like that from childhood.

We want to spend time with family, we want to travel, we want to become wealthy, and we want to improve our living standards but most of us are not able to do that or we struggle. And your new struggle is important and essential to growing.

But working from home at least gives you time to play with kids. You can do breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them. And you can also help them to get sleep as well by telling stories.

Not only that, but when your kids will see that you’re working, learning, reading, and communicating they will observe, analyze and understand your work ethics and behaviors.

If you’re good at that they will get inspired. Else they will feel bad working like you.

Even while you’re working, you can make them interested to sit with you and do their homework.

This point is emotional, but what is a better time investment than investing it with kids and your spouse?

We don’t get that much time to spend in the morning and evening with family when we have to travel and work from the office. And due to that, our kids become habitual with mobile phones, social media, and many other bad habits.

And Sunday is not enough when most of us have to take rest or need to give time for relatives and various others such as plumbing, billing, cleaning, and various other weekly home works.

So, working from home have its advantages in that you can spend time with kids as well while working or on small breaks.

3. Impact on mental and physical fitness:

Working from home impacts your health positively. You will get good and proper time to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You will eat good homemade food that is healthier than canteen or office food. You will be able to spend time with family and understand their personal and professional goals. You will get a chance to understand them while at lunch or dinner. Not only that you will get a real picture of how things are going at home and with relatives and neighbors.

Else, if you spend most of your time at the office, then you will have less time and attention to listen to your family members. Not only that you can also share your doubts and insecurities with them. It will also make you relaxed.

At home, you can schedule the time for exercise and meditation. And when you do that in front of your kids then they will also get inspired from you. And you will be able to build good habits in your kids.

4. You can help with family work during breaks:

When working you can take a break from work as well. And you can use any time to work on when you are most active. You can change your body posture and sit.

While on breaks, you can help your spouse to make food. You can help with small and domestic work. It will increase the love between you and your spouse. This will create a positive environment and you will become more productive at work. And both of you can help each other.

If you’re single, then you can work at any time. You have to make progress, so you can follow a schedule or work based on your creativity.

For example, if you got the idea at 12 PM to do something, then you can implement that immediately.

5. Healthy work environment:

At the office, you have to sit for long hours in front of computers, lights, ACs, and servers. Most of the things in the office are artificial and consumption of that air, heat, and light is not good.

But at home, you can sit in the garden with natural air and sunlight. You can sit in a dark room for creativity or in natural light when feeling lazy.

You have more options to create and use natural options.

I know that we can’t do all types of work from home. Not all will be comfortable doing it. And it also varies based on the job roles. For example, freelancers have more freedom than regular employees. But employees are more stable financially than a freelancer.

So, everything is based on the choice or interest of people. Everyone has a different experience, interest, and impact.

But along with the advantages of working from home, there are also many disadvantages as well. Let’s take a look at the following disadvantages of working from home:

Disadvantages of working from home:

1. laziness and procrastination:.

If you don’t follow the balanced schedule to work at home then it’s tough to become productive. At home, you have more options to become lazy and procrastinate.

For example, when you know, you don’t have to go office then you will wake up late. Sooner it will become a habit and you will start getting up at 8 AM or 9 AM.

At home, you can be distracted when someone visits at home. For example, when relatives or neighbors know that you’re at home then there are higher chances that they will invite you to parties, travel, and events. If not, they can also come to your home.

And you can’t avoid or ignore them very easily. And it’s tough to become disciplined at work and also in studies at home.

Even if no one comes, at home you will have options for gossip, entertainment and parties, and various other luxury comforts.

So, whenever you will face little difficulty in the work you will be easily attracted by those comfortable or enjoyable options. And it will reduce your productivity and focus. It’s also because at home no one is watching you what you’re doing along with work or how you’re doing the work.

At home, you can eat more or more frequently. This will increase your weight. And it will negatively impact your work and health.

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2. You will learn less and your career growth will be slow:

I know that you can learn at home and build skills online in your spare time. You might not get that time in the office. But it’s not the same case for all.

Related: How to learn any type of IT skills online

When you’re in the office you have more chances to communicate and discuss the project ideas. At the office, you have a proper meeting time and room. Where you will not get distracted.

When you work at the office, you communicate with your coworkers and team members on a personal level as well. You will become more aware of what’s happening or what they are up to.

All of these office activities have more chances for networking and learning.

But at home, you will not find someone to share ideas. Else you can discuss it with your family. But that won’t work all the time.

I don’t mean you can’t learn at home. I mean along with learning you also need awareness and discussion on your lessons.

If you learned something then you have to test that before you finally select that idea. So, communication and networking, and meeting with people are more important for learning. If you can do that at home and online then it’s great, else do that online but also build connections with real-world people as well, especially those who are building virtual worlds.

Explore: Productive things to do on the Internet for Career and Business growth

3. Loneliness and lack of motivation for work:

If you are single then working from home is more challenging for you. Even for married people as well.

In the beginning, when you start working at home you will be more interested. You will enjoy working at home. But sooner or within a few months, you will start getting bored. It’s because there is no one working with you. Even chatting or video calling is not enough. All of them are outside.

While many manage their work and time effectively. Such as after working for 3 hours they visit a coffee shop or take a walk with the dog.

There are various famous and successful people in history who worked from home or started working from home.

But for that, you need focus, passion, and self-discipline. Not all are able to get that especially when they failed.

So, it’s important to consider your personality and productivity style. At home, you have to guide and order yourself. But at office, your seniors or boss or team leader or company is monitoring you. So, whether you’re motivated or not you have to work.

But it’s also possible in remote works as well. That your work is monitored or you have to respond to people. Even most of the people working for clients and companies as a freelancer or employees are monitored and managed well. But working for years just from home and alone is not a suitable or best option.

4. Home is Home, not an office:

The office is a proper and professional space for work. In your profession, job, and business you have to deal and communicate with various types of people. Not all types of deals, people and communications are equal.

So many times, you will be getting distraction while chatting or working with clients or in the meeting. Especially when you’re living in 2 BHK or in a colony. Not only do you get disturbed but your loud communication on the balcony due to a low network signal can disturb others as well.

Else if you have many rooms or separate entrances for one or two rooms then you can use those as an office. But if your work is related to meeting with people then you have to compromise your privacy.

Working from home is more suitable for YouTubers, bloggers, freelancers, and IT-related remote staff. But even these professionals also need to communicate and experience the real world. So that they can communicate better or create more useful content.

Related: How to build a learning environment for your kids at home

5. Lack of creativity:

If you’re a creative person or professional then it’s important for you to experience new things, people, sceneries, events, and learnings. At home, if you can’t change or make the work environment flexible, creative, and interesting then it’s tough to come up with new ideas and excitement.

6. The market and network will forget you:

Never become out of reach from your customers. In today’s time, there is more than one seller of the same goods and services. That’s why if not you then someone else is right. Common people do not know this or your customers and clients will only understand that you are working from home because your business is ruined. That’s why they will not contact such a person.

Apart from this, customers go to the market to buy, not at home. This means that those who are your customers or clients, when you’re not in their reach then they will not even notice you, and they will get their work done by someone else. People’s memory is getting weak, they don’t remember that you are also an expert. Now they will start counting you among them.

That’s why working from home or living at home means being excluded from social networking and professional networks. And the one who is not in the network does not get calls.

So if you want to build and grow your network in the market you must keep yourself connected to and visible to your target customers. that can be online and offline. But your customer should know that you’re still alive and working.

Our professional and social networks play a big role in our business and career success. Do not ignore this especially if you’re earning money based on your talents.

Conclusion:

Whether you work from home or office the most important thing is your focus and mindset. But it is also important to choose a workplace based on the type of work and goals.

If you’re doing a job in an IT company or working as an IT professional and you think can work from home then it’s great. Do that.

But when getting bored or when you think you can’t work anymore alone then change that.

There are lots of things that we have to do each day. Many times we fail and are successful. But in failures, we question or reason it our workplace or work environment.

Yes, a good work environment and good people in the network are really important for professional growth. But if you think you can do it online or at home then do it.

If you think you can do it at the office then do that.

Don’t worry, about the rent or the cost of the office when you know you can cover it with your work.

You have to give more preferences to your work and professional goals. Rather than thinking do I work at home or at the office?

And also remember, closing a business or closing an office and only working from home looks good in the beginning, but later or after a year or two you will experience the importance of a proper office and physical work environment.

Personally, I work in both places at the office and also at home. But I found that when I work at the office, I was more productive. I also found that when I am focused and motivated then I don’t care where I am working. I just work. No matter it’s an office, garden, home, car, or parking place.

And I also found that it’s tough for you and also family members to schedule or follow each other’s time. For example, if you’re currently focused on work, but then someone is calling you for dinner or lunch or you visit then you will be distracted from that focus.

So, I think it’s more a problem of focus than a place. So, whether it’s home or office, you have to build and use the environment that will make you more focused, excited, interested, and motivated to work. Now it can be your home or office.

During covid-19, it was or is very important and productive to work from home. Even after the post covid many companies and businesses are now more focused to work from home. There are also many people who found that working from home was great for them. While many find it very difficult and unproductive to work from home.

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Essay On Work From Home Boon Or Bane | Work From Home Essay

Hello Friend, In this post “ Essay On Work From Home Boon Or Bane | Work From Home Essay “, we will read about Work From Home as an Essay in detail, with different words. So…

Let’s Start…

Essay On Work From Home Boon Or Bane

Let’s begin with the advantages. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that people can work flexible hours especially for women who have young children.

Many of them otherwise quit their job after the birth of their children to look after them.

Moreover, male employees also benefit from working from home as they can save hours to commute to work and home back, improving their work-life balance and overall sense of wellbeing.

Further, employers also benefit from this arrangement. When employees work from their homes , the cost of running the business comes down.

On the other hand, there are a few challenges as well. Employees working from home may have difficulty building a rapport with others in their team, creating a lack of coordination among themselves.

Further, workers may find it difficult to get instant support from each other when problems arise leading to total chaos in the work schedules.

Worse! This lack of apathy towards each other may be also reflected towards the customer which can lead to the ultimate destruction of a reputation for the company.

To summarise, there are several benefits to working from home including the freedom to individual employees.

Many employers have already realized this and started encouraging their workers to work from home , of course, with some precautionary measures against downfalls of lack of communication and subsequent disasters.

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Essay On Work From Home During Lockdown OR Essay On Work From Home During Pandemic

“ Work for a cause, not for applause. Live life to express, not to impress. Don’t strive to make your presence noticed just make your absence felt “.

These lines suit those people who are working from their homes or teleworking today.

Today the world is facing the Coronavirus crisis , a pandemic that has changed our life.

People are locked in their homes due to the spread of COVID -19 a disease that spread through person-to-person contact.

In this situation, it is important to limit our contact with other people as much as possible.

Most people feel better working from home instead of traveling to a workplace every day.

It saves time and travel expenses . Due to working from home or teleworking, people get more time for themselves and for their work.

Their minimum traveling reduces environmental pollution , and they do not require to stand in a traffic jam.

They can decide when to do their work and when to take a rest. Working from home is effective for a lot of people because they get more time to spend with their family.

There are still some disadvantages of working from home . Social distancing doesn’t suit our nature.

“ Man is a social being ,” said Aristotle a famous philosopher. Due to the rapid spread of Coronavirus, most of the global population is experiencing isolation.

This loneliness can create mental and physical health issues. Working from home reduces face-to-face interactions among colleagues. Direct interactions among colleagues create personal connections and strengthen healthily working relationships.

A positive change is happening around us because of social distancing and work from home that the people are embracing during this pandemic of COVID-19 . But it will be too early to speak of long-term changes.

Working from hom e is better because its advantages overcome the disadvantages.

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Essay On Work From Home Culture

Working from home is a convenient method for the professional to work in their home.

According to this pandemic situation, professionals need a remote job. As we review the work culture as a 9 to 5 job.

How difficult and complex, in rushing to the office in traffic and the climatic condition such as the rainy season.

Therefore, professionals got a wonderful opportunity to work from home . Now a day office culture is eradicated.

New and amazing work culture is introduced as a remote job or work from home.

Professionals can work in their leisure. Those who are professional learn to keep their work busier in the home.

That, they can get appreciation from the company.

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Essay On Work From Home Pros and Cons

A basic requirement of a human’s life is bread, cloth, and house and to fulfill all these requirements money is required and money can be obtained only from a business.

No person can live life without earning money . money is essential needed to survive in the world.

A person undertakes a variety of jobs or occupations to earn a living.

Whether it is in the economic field or political, religious, or academic field .

Because it is said that man is a social animal . but in the present time, the definition seems to be changing.

Today, an epidemic called corona has spread all over the world. looking at the same, there, there is a danger in the whole areas.

Due to which many tasks are being completed by staying at home .

In a way, man is able to do the work of his office and business smoothly from home .

Working from home doesn’t mean you lose the sense of professionalism.

It means you have to create a warm work environment to become more productive than ever.

Working from home can sound like a dream come true. however, like any job situation, there are many disadvantages to home employment that may become apparent over time.

For some, this can mean making a few adjustments to make the situation more tolerable.

For others, the disadvantages can be so powerful that they can put an end to the home office .

Just as there are two sides to a coin there are two sides to every story . similarly, there are some positive aspects of work from home .

First, saving time in a person’s life , that is, when a person goes out of the house to work, he had to face problems of congestion, traffic, jam, etc . but now it fits the exact saying kill two birds with a single stone .

That is, the money spent on traveling is also saved. and the most important problem was fuel savings for the future…

i.e, 24 hours carts roomed the roads with more than half of the people employed.

So, the fuel that is wasted on the roads also pollutes the environment was completely balanced.

Now let’s see how the negative impact of coins is challenging for us .

First of all, social interactions decreases, loneliness increases, mental as well as physical problem increased, expressing ability decrease, etc.

Another important challenge is that work from home is not possible in every area.

like if we, work in the educational field, there are many children who are not even familiar with something called online.

So what is the benefit of the teacher working from home due to which the development of all is not happening simultaneously?

The promotion of many people has stopped in this system working from home seems dull, the ability to work is seen to be destroyed soon.

Which mental fatigue has become a significant challenge?

Successfully working from home is a skill, just like programming, designing, or writing . it takes time to develop that skill.

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Is India a Safe Place for Women? Another Brutal Killing Raises the Question.

The rape and murder of a trainee doctor at her own hospital has brought up, once again, uncomfortable truths about a country that wants to be a global leader.

Young women protesting with raised fists and holding a banner saying “we want justice”

By Anupreeta Das and Sameer Yasir

In December 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student boarded a bus in New Delhi a little after 9 p.m., expecting it would take her home. Instead, she was gang-raped and assaulted so viciously with an iron rod that her intestines were damaged. She died days later as India erupted in rage.

Nearly 12 years later, the nation is convulsing with anger once again — this time, over the ghastly rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in a Kolkata hospital, as she rested in a seminar room after a late-night shift. Since the Aug. 9 killing, thousands of doctors have gone on strike to demand a safer work environment and thousands more people have taken to the streets to demand justice.

For a country desperate to be seen as a global leader, repeated high-profile cases of brutal sexual assaults highlight an uncomfortable truth: India, by many measures , remains one of the world’s most unsafe places for women. Rape and domestic violence are relatively common, and conviction rates are low.

This week, the Supreme Court of India took up the Kolkata case as one of fundamental rights and safety, questioning how hospital administrators and police officers had handled it and saying new protective measures were needed. “The nation cannot wait for another rape and murder for real changes on the ground,” Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said.

Gender-related violence is hardly unique to India. But even as millions of Indian women have joined the urban work force in the past decade, securing their financial independence and helping to fuel the country’s rapid growth, they are still often left to bear the burden of their own safety.

Longstanding customs that both repress women and in many cases confine them to the home have made their safety in public spaces an afterthought. It can be dangerous for a woman to use public transportation, especially at night, and sexual harassment occurs frequently on the streets and in offices. Mothers tell their daughters to be watchful. Brothers and husbands drop their sisters and wives off at work.

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Australians will soon have the right to disconnect after hours, but it may not shift an 'excessive' work culture

By Annika Burgess

Topic: Work

Man working from home in a creative field on his ipad

From next week, employees will have the legal "right to disconnect" and refuse to respond to work communications after hours. ( Unsplash: ConvertKit )

From next week, Australians will have the legal right to ignore all work communications out of working hours.

The laws follow similar policies in other countries, but there are questions over how much they will change Australia's culture of working "excessive" hours.

What's next?

Experts say the "right to disconnect" laws are a positive step but employers need to lead by example.

Australia was once a pioneer of setting work limits.

In 1856, Victorian stonemasons won a world-first fight, demanding they work no more than eight hours a day.

But these days, Australians are putting in "extreme and excessive" working hours, experts say.

New digital tools and flexible working models have created a culture where it Is the norm to be constantly contactable.

Research shows many Australians are at "high risk" of work addiction, and our work-life balance is worse than that of many other countries.

But new laws that come into effect next week aim to set work boundaries in an increasingly hyper-connected world.

Similar "right to disconnect" policies have been largely successful in other countries.

But will they be enough to break Australia's workaholic habits?

Laws show promise globally

From August 26, "right to disconnect" laws will apply to businesses with 15 or more employees.

The law will not restrict managers from contacting employees whenever they wish.

But it does give employees the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from their employer outside work hours unless that refusal is deemed unreasonable.

John Hopkins from Swinburne University's school of business, law and entrepreneurship, said similar laws had been adopted in up to 25 countries.

And so far, there is evidence they have been largely successful in helping to protect the health and wellbeing of workers in the digital age.

"This is a step in the right direction," Professor Hopkins said.

"This is the first attempt to address burnout and mental health issues associated with overwork."

A par of legs dressed in thermal leggings on a chequered blanket with a laptop.

Experts say flexible work models have led to over-time hours creeping up on us. ( Supplied: Melinda Bannister )

France set the agenda in 2017, becoming the first country to require companies to negotiate agreements with staff over their rights to ignore after-hours communication.

Fines for companies that breach the laws have been rare, but they do happen.

In an extreme case, the French wing of a British pest control business was ordered to pay a former employee 60,000 euros ($99,000) after forcing him to permanently leave his telephone on to respond to work requests.

A nation of 'excessive' workers

Research by the European Union agency Eurofound showed improved wellbeing and work satisfaction in companies with right-to-disconnect policies.

Eurofound gathered insights from about 1,600 employee surveys across companies in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.

More than 70 per cent of workers in companies with the regulations considered the impacts to be positive.

And 92 per cent of the workers reported very high levels of job satisfaction.

But Eurofound also determined that a right-to-disconnect policy on its own was "insufficient" to bring about cultural change in the workplace.

Lisa Heap, senior researcher at the Centre for Future Work, said Australia had created a culture that encouraged working long hours.

"We have people who are in full-time employment doing extreme and excessive working hours," she told the ABC.

"And we've got employers who are increasingly expecting people to be available without limitation on that."

A 2023 study by the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute estimated Australian workers were on average doing an extra 5.4 hours a week.

That amounts to about 280 hours of unpaid time each year, at a cost of $130 billion in annual lost incomes.

Ms Heap said Australia was taking a "strong step".

"There's been a kind of erosion of rights in relation to employment in Australia," she said.

"This law is trying to recreate the idea of what is the 'norm'."

However, Rachael Potter from the Centre for Workplace Excellence at the University of South Australia, said if there was nothing stopping managers from contacting employees, it would be "very difficult" to shift behaviours.

"It's a very positive step forward, but it will still be quite challenging to ignore a manager if they contact you out of hours," she told the ABC.

"We need a culture that doesn't encourage and reward sending late-night emails, and it's up to an employer to set the tone."

A smiling woman sits on a bench outside with her hands on her lap with a tree and building in background

Rachael Potter says preliminary results indicated 30 per cent of Australian workers showed "high risk" of work addiction. ( ABC News: Evelyn Manfield )

Australians can 'send a message'

Expectations to put in extra hours exist across all industries and levels within a workforce.

And more employees were feeling pressure to work overtime due to fears about job security and the increased cost of living, Dr Potter said.

Dr Potter has been involved in global research that shows Australians are among the most at risk of work addiction and are increasingly unable to switch off.

But Professor Hopkins believes Australia should not be any different to other countries that have adopted the laws.

Although the impacts might be "subtle", he said they should lead to important discussions.

"It's not going to eliminate contact at all," Professor Hopkins said.

"Hopefully we'll reduce it, and encourage those conversations about who is getting contacted outside of work hours."

Ms Heap said the laws would send a signal, and give employees the assurance it was OK to say no.

"Even if employees don't do anything about it right now, because they don't necessarily have the confidence to raise that concern, they know that's not what's supposed to happen," she said.

The European Union study recommended that policies should be accompanied by awareness raising and effective measures to limit out-of-hours connection.

Dr Potter said employees could start by simply switching off.

"Individuals need to set their own boundaries by turning off notifications and taking work emails off their phones," she said.

"People are needing recovery time … these laws send a message that we need to disconnect more, but whether that's enforced or not we'll have to see."

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As a Teenager in Europe, I Went to Nudist Beaches All the Time. 30 Years Later, Would the Experience Be the Same?

Image may contain Princess Antonia of Luxembourg Sandro Botticelli Art Painting Adult Person and Wedding

In July 2017, I wrote an article about toplessness for Vogue Italia. The director, actor, and political activist Lina Esco had emerged from the world of show business to question public nudity laws in the United States with 2014’s Free the Nipple . Her film took on a life of its own and, thanks to the endorsement from the likes of Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Willow Smith, eventually developed into a whole political movement, particularly on social media where the hashtag #FreeTheNipple spread at lightning speed. The same year as that piece, actor Alyssa Milano tweeted “me too” and encouraged others who had been sexually assaulted to do the same, building on the movement activist Tarana Burke had created more than a decade earlier. The rest is history.

In that Vogue article, I chatted with designer Alessandro Michele about a shared memory of our favorite topless beaches of our youth. Anywhere in Italy where water appeared—be it the hard-partying Riviera Romagnola, the traditionally chic Amalfi coast and Sorrento peninsula, the vertiginous cliffs and inlets of Italy’s continuation of the French Côte d’Azur or the towering volcanic rocks of Sicily’s mythological Riviera dei Ciclopi—one was bound to find bodies of all shapes and forms, naturally topless.

In the ’90s, growing up in Italy, naked breasts were everywhere and nobody thought anything about it. “When we look at our childhood photos we recognize those imperfect breasts and those bodies, each with their own story. I think of the ‘un-beauty’ of that time and feel it is actually the ultimate beauty,” Michele told me.

Indeed, I felt the same way. My relationship with toplessness was part of a very democratic cultural status quo. If every woman on the beaches of the Mediterranean—from the sexy girls tanning on the shoreline to the grandmothers eating spaghetti al pomodoro out of Tupperware containers under sun umbrellas—bore equally naked body parts, then somehow we were all on the same team. No hierarchies were established. In general, there was very little naked breast censorship. Free nipples appeared on magazine covers at newsstands, whether tabloids or art and fashion magazines. Breasts were so naturally part of the national conversation and aesthetic that Ilona Staller (also known as Cicciolina) and Moana Pozzi, two porn stars, cofounded a political party called the Love Party. I have a clear memory of my neighbor hanging their party’s banner out his window, featuring a topless Cicciolina winking.

A lot has changed since those days, but also since that initial 2017 piece. There’s been a feminist revolution, a transformation of women’s fashion and gender politics, the absurd overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction in New York, the intensely disturbing overturning of Roe v Wade and the current political battle over reproductive rights radiating from America and far beyond. One way or another, the female body is very much the site of political battles as much as it is of style and fashion tastes. And maybe for this reason naked breasts seem to populate runways and street style a lot more than they do beaches—it’s likely that being naked at a dinner party leaves more of a permanent mark than being naked on a glamorous shore. Naked “dressing” seems to be much more popular than naked “being.” It’s no coincidence that this year Saint Laurent, Chloé, Ferragamo, Tom Ford, Gucci, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, and Valentino all paid homage to sheer dressing in their collections, with lacy dresses, see-through tops, sheer silk hosiery fabric, and close-fitting silk dresses. The majority of Anthony Vaccarello’s fall 2024 collection was mostly transparent. And even off the runway, guests at the Saint Laurent show matched the mood. Olivia Wilde appeared in a stunning see-through dark bodysuit, Georgia May Jagger wore a sheer black halter top, Ebony Riley wore a breathtaking V-neck, and Elsa Hosk went for translucent polka dots.

In some strange way, it feels as if the trends of the ’90s have swapped seats with those of today. When, in 1993, a 19-year-old Kate Moss wore her (now iconic) transparent, bronze-hued Liza Bruce lamé slip dress to Elite Model Agency’s Look of the Year Awards in London, I remember seeing her picture everywhere and feeling in awe of her daring and grace. I loved her simple sexy style, with her otherworldly smile, the hair tied back in a bun. That very slip has remained in the collective unconscious for decades, populating thousands of internet pages, but in remembering that night Moss admitted that the nude look was totally unintentional: “I had no idea why everyone was so excited—in the darkness of Corinne [Day’s] Soho flat, the dress was not see-through!” That’s to say that nude dressing was usually mostly casual and not intellectualized in the context of a larger movement.

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But today nudity feels loaded in different ways. In April, actor and author Julia Fox appeared in Los Angeles in a flesh-colored bra that featured hairy hyper-realist prints of breasts and nipples, and matching panties with a print of a sewn-up vagina and the words “closed” on it, as a form of feminist performance art. Breasts , an exhibition curated by Carolina Pasti, recently opened as part of the 60th Venice Biennale at Palazzo Franchetti and showcases works that span from painting and sculpture to photography and film, reflecting on themes of motherhood, empowerment, sexuality, body image, and illness. The show features work by Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, and an incredible painting by Bernardino Del Signoraccio of Madonna dell’Umiltà, circa 1460-1540. “It was fundamental for me to include a Madonna Lactans from a historical perspective. In this intimate representation, the Virgin reveals one breast while nurturing the child, the organic gesture emphasizing the profound bond between mother and child,” Pasti said when we spoke.

Through her portrayal of breasts, she delves into the delicate balance of strength and vulnerability within the female form. I spoke to Pasti about my recent musings on naked breasts, which she shared in a deep way. I asked her whether she too noticed a disparity between nudity on beaches as opposed to the one on streets and runways, and she agreed. Her main concern today is around censorship. To Pasti, social media is still far too rigid around breast exposure and she plans to discuss this issue through a podcast that she will be launching in September, together with other topics such as motherhood, breastfeeding, sexuality, and breast cancer awareness.

With summer at the door, it was my turn to see just how much of the new reread on transparency would apply to beach life. In the last few years, I noticed those beaches Michele and I reminisced about have grown more conservative and, despite being the daughter of unrepentant nudists and having a long track record of militant topless bathing, I myself have felt a bit more shy lately. Perhaps a woman in her 40s with two children is simply less prone to taking her top off, but my memories of youth are populated by visions of bare-chested mothers surveilling the coasts and shouting after their kids in the water. So when did we stop? And why? When did Michele’s era of “un-beauty” end?

In order to get back in touch with my own naked breasts I decided to revisit the nudist beaches of my youth to see what had changed. On a warm day in May, I researched some local topless beaches around Rome and asked a friend to come with me. Two moms, plus our four children, two girls and two boys of the same ages. “Let’s make an experiment of this and see what happens,” I proposed.

The kids all yawned, but my friend was up for it. These days to go topless, especially on urban beaches, you must visit properties that have an unspoken nudist tradition. One of these in Rome is the natural reserve beach at Capocotta, south of Ostia, but I felt a bit unsure revisiting those sands. In my memory, the Roman nudist beaches often equated to encounters with promiscuous strangers behind the dunes. I didn’t want to expose the kids, so, being that I am now a wise adult, I went ahead and picked a compromise. I found a nude-friendly beach on the banks of the Farfa River, in the rolling Sabina hills.

We piled into my friend’s car and drove out. The kids were all whining about the experiment. “We don’t want to see naked mums!” they complained. “Can’t you just lie and say you went to a nudist beach?”

We parked the car and walked across the medieval fairy-tale woods until we reached the path that ran along the river. All around us were huge trees and gigantic leaves. It had rained a lot recently and the vegetation had grown incredibly. We walked past the remains of a Roman road. The colors all around were bright green, the sky almost fluorescent blue. The kids got sidetracked by the presence of frogs. According to the indications, the beach was about a mile up the river. Halfway down the path, we bumped into a couple of young guys in fanny packs. I scanned them for signs of quintessential nudist attitude, but realized I actually had no idea what that was. I asked if we were headed in the right direction to go to “the beach”. They nodded and gave us a sly smile, which I immediately interpreted as a judgment about us as mothers, and more generally about our age, but I was ready to vindicate bare breasts against ageism.

We reached a small pebbled beach, secluded and bordered by a huge trunk that separated it from the path. A group of girls was there, sharing headphones and listening to music. To my dismay they were all wearing the tops and bottoms of their bikinis. One of them was in a full-piece bathing suit and shorts. “See, they are all wearing bathing suits. Please don’t be the weird mums who don’t.”

At this point, it was a matter of principle. My friend and I decided to take our bathing suits off completely, if only for a moment, and jumped into the river. The boys stayed on the beach with full clothes and shoes on, horrified. The girls went in behind us with their bathing suits. “Are you happy now? my son asked. “Did you prove your point?”

I didn’t really know what my point actually was. I think a part of me wanted to feel entitled to those long-gone decades of naturalism. Whether this was an instinct, or as Pasti said, “an act that was simply tied to the individual freedom of each woman”, it was hard to tell. At this point in history, the two things didn’t seem to cancel each other out—in fact, the opposite. Taking off a bathing suit, at least for my generation who never had to fight for it, had unexpectedly turned into a radical move and maybe I wanted to be part of the new discourse. Also, the chances of me going out in a fully sheer top were slim these days, but on the beach it was different. I would always fight for an authentic topless experience.

After our picnic on the river, we left determined to make our way—and without children—to the beaches of Capocotta. In truth, no part of me actually felt very subversive doing something I had been doing my whole life, but it still felt good. Once a free breast, always a free breast.

This article was originally published on British Vogue .

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The Twists and Turns of Language

Natasha Trethewey’s life in poetry and prose

Natasha Trethewey’s Life in Poetry and Prose

A work of biography, an essay on literature and memory and the South, a prose poem full of lyrical dexterity, Trethewey’s latest book is like all of her others: a master study of the self.

If, as Zora Neale Hurston once argued, racial prejudice is a loss not for her but for those who embrace it, then one has to wonder how much the United States has forfeited on account of its perennial anti-Blackness. “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry,” Hurston wrote. “It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is sprinkled with wry aphorisms like this that slice through the layers of early-20th-century American racism. Riddled with anecdotes and Southern charm, it is also not only about Hurston celebrating her Blackness but turning the mirror back onto white Americans, who, she insists, miss a lot about themselves, too.

Books in review

The house of being.

The art of showing Americans what they have missed and who they are—in particular by offering acute portraits of the South—sits at the center of Natasha Trethewey’s poetry and prose. Her accolades alone testify to her acumen. She is a griot, a former US poet laureate, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. But what has made her so vital to American literature is that she has cast back the image of a fragmented America to her readers not so much to affirm it as to offer a lament, much as Hurston did, for what has been lost—especially in the South.

This sense of hope and loss is fully displayed in her new book, The House of Being . Weaving together memoir and history, poetry and prose, intimate details from her life and more general observations about the South, the book is a testament to Trethewey’s command of language and her willingness to confront those difficult periods in her life that transformed her. A monologue, a work of biography, an essay on literature and memory, a prose poem full of lyrical dexterity, and a reflection on who she is in a society that has actively tried to partition people based on race, The House of Being is ultimately a study of maturation, of becoming an adult, and of how the early experiences of life can shape you for years to come.

Born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1966, Trethewey begins her story at the beginning—with her parents’ marriage. Her Black mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, was from Gulfport; her white father, Eric Trethewey, was from Canada. In 1967, an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving, brought a Supreme Court case against Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, hoping that their marital union could be recognized—and to the surprise of many Americans, they won. But Turnbough and Trethewey had married two years earlier, and the poem “Miscegenation,” which their daughter republishes in The House of Being , captures what was at stake:

In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi.

Trethewey’s subsequent birth, while not illegal in its own right, also posed a provocation to the Southern social order: For if her parents’ marriage was deemed illegitimate in the eyes of the State of Mississippi, so was young Natasha. White people in Mississippi would stare at her parents with detestation, and some would call her “mongrel” and “half-breed.” To overcome their animosity, young Trethewey turned to literature: “I learned then from the experience of Odysseus… that it would take cleverness to outpace whatever obstacles stood before me.” The twists and turns of language captivated her. The sinewy words of her mother and grandmother speaking African American vernacular sparked an unending interest in how humans express themselves. At the same time, she thought she could see how society’s racial hierarchies mapped onto the languages spoken around her.

Trethewey’s first home was an intergenerational amalgamation that included her parents and grandmother. Slightly outside Gulfport’s city limits, the family house was in a community once known as Griswold, land settled by formerly enslaved African Americans after the Civil War. It was in this vicinity that Trethewey and her parents were exposed to the fungibility of a semi-rural landscape: red-wing blackbirds soaring through the sky, cows grazing near her backyard, or even the “cracked shell on an old turtle.”

After her parents divorced, Natasha and her mother moved to Atlanta so that her mother could begin graduate school. While her memories of her father during these years were idyllic, those of her stepfather were different. He physically abused her mother, which Natasha only found out about years later—but even then, she sensed something was wrong, and in the years to come she would be haunted by it. As she writes in her poem “What Is Evidence,”

Not the fleeting bruises she’d cover with make-up, a dark patch as if imprint of a scope she’d pressed her eye too close to, looking for a way out

The worst, however, was still to come: In 1985, her stepfather murdered her mother. These moments of sorrow reappear and add to her unrelenting desire to write about her past.

From these early experiences in a South slowly shedding its Jim Crow past, the young Trethewey became an adult—and a writer. She not only understood “the sanctity of books” but felt at home through the concealments of metaphor and the ambiguities of language. In other words, she also became a poet.

Trethewey studied English literature at the University of Georgia and earned an MFA at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. While her educational course might sound conventional for a contemporary writer, as one probes deeper into her story in The House of Being , one begins to see how unusual her literary education was. Along with her early exposure to her mother and grandmother’s way of speaking, she also had a poet in the family: her father. As a child, Trethewey recalls, her father would read stories to her that “must have taken root in my psyche, establishing early on the pattern to which my own journey would conform.”

The experiences of her mother in the South also contributed to Trethewey’s interest in writing and her skills as a poet. Her mother, she recalls in The House of Being , was always “showing me how to signify, how to use received forms to challenge the dominant cultural narrative of our native geography.”

Flannery O’Connor once wrote: “Where you came from is gone. Where you thought you were going to never was there. And where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.” For Trethewey, the dislocation of her early years led her to find a home in the written word. Poetry became a way to create regions for herself; it was also a way to examine the cyclical anguish, the loss, the trauma, and the hopes of living in a region and a country more generally that was legally and then structurally defined by the experience of race.

Over the years, Trethewey became a memoirist and poet determined to render meaning out of these facts of her life. In her collection Thrall , she probed the afterlife of captivity. In Native Guard , she mourned her mother’s death and considered the Southern world they shared. Lines in her poetry tend to jostle between life and history, relationships and regions, the experience of race and the making of it. The death of her mother would in particular come to haunt her, and she turned to prose to make sense of that, as well. In Memorial Drive , her 2020 memoir, she told the story of her mother’s life and death. A study of her relationship with her mother, the book was also a study of her mother’s relationships, of the moments of domestic bliss and the harrowing ones of domestic violence—about race-making in America and how Black women become vulnerable to abuse. “If I was with my father, I measured the polite responses from white people, the way they addressed him as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mister.’ Whereas my mother would be called ‘Gal,’ never ‘Miss’ or ‘Ma’am,’ as I had been taught was proper.” The polarizing experiences of her parents were part of an accruement of observations about the linguistic practice of racial identity—how people are read or made.

In The House of Being , Trethewey revisits many of these early memories, but from a different angle: She is primarily interested in telling the story of her native region, the South. “The ‘Solid South,’” she writes, “was a society based on the myths of innate racial difference, a hierarchy based on notions of supremacy, the language used to articulate that thinking was rooted in the unique experience of white southerners.” As with her mother’s story, so, too, with the story of the South: It has haunted her ever since she was a young person pushing against the Confederate realities and fictions that persisted in the region—whether through Jim Crow laws or groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy or the monuments memorializing the glory of Southern Civil War generals.

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In The House of Being , Trethewey seeks to break through these myths and tell a different story about the South. “I am reminded again of the moment in Black Boy when Richard Wright declares he wants to be a writer,” she writes, “and what it means to have someone with a kind of dominion over you try to diminish you by telling you what you cannot do or be.” Like Wright, and much like Hurston before him, Trethewey wants to show what has been lost by telling only one story about the South, and what might be gained by telling another.

Trethewey does this in several bold and original ways. Literalizing her interest in her home region, she considers how the design of Southern homes was influenced by African and Afro-Caribbean architecture. Her grandmother’s shotgun house conveys a story not just about the period it was made in, but also a much longer history. “The long-house format,” she notes, “is a legacy of West African architecture, brought to America by both free and enslaved peoples who arrived in New Orleans from Haiti, after the Revolution in 1804.”

Trethewey also describes the darker side of the American South during the height of the civil rights movement. One of her first memories of “domestic terrorism” occurred at a young age, well before she congealed every incident that happened during the 1960s. After the African American church adjacent to her grandmother’s house led a voter registration drive in Gulfport, an unknown person (most likely white) burned a cross on the plot of land that bordered the church and her grandmother’s house. This racially coded act of hatred was frightening and had a clear message in terms of the violence it conveyed, but it was also ambiguous: It left Trethewey retroactively wondering whether it was motivated by the voter drive or by her interracial household. Such ghosts stalk The House of Being , rambling through its corridors and stairways. Memories, Trethewey reminds us, raise questions that do not always have answers. The South is a place that is simultaneously welcoming and inimical, a home to millions and yet also a hostile land.

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At times, I wondered if The House of Being needed a more cohesive narrative arc—a clear beginning, middle, and end. The text is often elliptical, circling back on memories and skipping ahead to new and unfamiliar territory. Often it invokes previous books and poems that Trethewey has written, as well as pasts that some of us may need to be more familiar with. This can be invigorating but also frustrating. Yet for Trethewey, the labyrinthine nature of the book is intended to match form with content: Her desire is not to offer a clean and linear narrative. Instead, she wants to tell a story about the South that is full of messiness and confusion. “Writing,” Trethewey notes near the end of the book, “is a way of creating order out of chaos, of taking charge of one’s own story, being the sovereign of the self by pushing back against received knowledge and guarding the sanctity of the dwelling place of the imagination.”

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