The quality of life and the effect it has on work performance

The way we work is constantly changing. The possibility to work remotely or distributed is something that has been with us for a long time. Even before the industrial revolution people tended to work at home. All professions we knew back in the time were working from their home. With the advent of the industrial revolution that has begun to change. Our ancestors were starting to work in organisations. The divide between what is home and what is workplace was getting deeper. As we developed more and more, our needs were bigger and bigger. 

 

From shoes to cars 

It may sound a little bit funny, but when working from home or at home, your needs are probably not that big comparing it to daily commutes to the office to conduct the same business. Let's say a person takes a train to get to the office, but still, there is a couple of hundred meters of walking. Between the station and office and station and home. The shoes get worn out, and you need to replace them. Probably a lot sooner than in the case you could work from home. As effectively as from the office. Your other daily routines don't change, the only difference is that you don't go to work. Or, let's take a car. If people would think and decide rationally I believe that a car in the family could last a lot longer, not just a couple of years. There is data available on average age of road vehicles per country in Europe which reveals that the average age of a passenger car in the EU is around eight years. Give or take a couple of months. For the sake of the argument, let's assume people replace their old cars with new models because of the fact they are worn out. They don't work anymore. Or they are too expensive to maintain. In reality, some people replace their old car with a new model of the same car every two years, some people don't get to buy a new car, and so on. But, if no daily commute from home to work and back is to be done, one is to assume those same cars would be preserved better. With less mileage, fewer expenses for repairs and service, less stress put on the vital parts of the vehicle, those cars could be in our possession for longer periods of time. Again, under the assumption, we decide rationally when it comes to cars. In reality, I believe that even if we did work from home all the time, we probably would not think about buying a couple of pairs of shoes less per year or replacing our car every ten or more years decade, and not in six or seven years time. 

 

 

 

working remotly

 

Why not, if there is mutual trust?

The perks of working remotely at least from my standpoint are hidden somewhere else. The company I work enables all employees to work remotely. Because it trusts them the job will be done. And also because it respects the work-life balance. In my case, I benefit regardless of the season. In spring and autumn when the days are getting shorter and longer bike rides during the week are becoming impossible, working remotely means a lot. I can grab something to eat during the day knowing I don't have to drive to get to my home for up to an hour, I can be on my bike in a matter of minutes after I have completed my daily assignments and the workday has ended. If I had to drive, I would have been left with no more than two hours of moderate daylight or even dusk. In the summer you can be off to the coast and reach one of the nearby places just in time to take a dive into the ocean during the day. If no possibility of working remotely I wouldn't have that option, as I would lose precious two hours of time driving back and forth. And ever since the birth of my son, he is going to be four in March, I can't imagine spending as much time as possible with him and watching him grow up and experience what is happening around him. Those are some of the benefits of working remotely have on my work-life balance. There are no wrongs or rights here. 

Every business owner has to decide for herself/himself if that is something that would work for their company. Not just work, because I believe there is ample evidence to prove that, but also be beneficial. For the employees, for the company culture, and in the end also for the company. Of course, there can also be downsides to working remotely, but if you instead focus on the positive, I'm confident the positives greatly outweigh the negatives. 

 

 

We have an abundance of experience working remotely with diverse teams from different countries. Whether you are thinking about if and how you would embrace remote workers, or you are considering to go all-remote-in (alluding to all-in from gambling) we have the processes and tools in place to get you the results. Reach out to see how we mastered the concept of remote work.

 

 

Photo by Mitchel Lensink on Unsplash

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash