Is Work from home the future?

 The world is dynamic and that is an undisputed fact. While everyone is used to seeing change, no one could be ready for what the pandemic had in store. With much confusion and several crises worldwide, chaos was a common occurrence. In order to make it through this dark phase, everyone had to adopt new approaches in order to overcome it. 

New policies and laws flew out of government buildings, Lockdowns and curfews were implemented, and masks were made masks mandatory. Supermarkets ran short of supply as people tried to stock up on their inventory.

During these times, the main challenge was to maintain social distance from each other, and the solution was to work from home. A drastic change yet a very simple one if you would point out the technology we have available. 

With applications like zoom, discord, google teams, and many more, companies were able to get work done while their employees isolated themselves at home.

How work from home helped the world

Although this new innovation would initially receive criticism, the benefits were quickly noticed. Since no one traveled to the office building anymore, fewer fossil fuels were burnt, and urban areas' pollution levels took a big dip. 

With digitization, documents were stored as soft copies instead of paper. Employees showed higher productivity and reported a better work-life balance.

From an employer's perspective, it meant that the company could save millions on real estate and building utilities. This also allowed them to broaden their hiring range for now; they could hire talent from worldwide.

The Disadvantages

However, a few months after this model was adopted, a few downsides could be seen. Although the work got done, there was very little social interaction amongst the employees. 

Although timings were flexible, they were often used against the employees, making them overwork or forcing them to work at odd hours. Some people were not as productive at home due to several distractions being present. 

People often had to spend out of their own pocket to set up their home office and their internet was not as reliable as the internet in office buildings. And while being cooped up at home for a long time due to the lockdown many experienced motivational challenges and needed to build a stronger sense of self-discipline.

Although it helps a majority, not every industry will be able to reap the benefits

More importantly, this model wasn't possible for every industry as some required employees to be present in person.

Fields such as software development, law, accounting, finance, and marketing did really well as most of the process can take place offsite. However, departments that dealt with tangible goods or required in-person, such as manufacturing, would not work under this model. 

Services that required the provider and the receiver to be present such as medical surgeries, massage therapy, and cinemas also would not do so well.

Is it here to stay?

Coming to the present, we can see the pandemic on its last legs. Many offices have returned to their offline routine. However, the work from the home model has worked so well for some that they decided to continue with it. Many experts predict that the world’s workplaces shall never be the same again. And several surveys have shown results that support it.

Work from home is still very widely used, opening up several opportunities for job hunters that were previously inaccessible due to distance or other reasons. Many of these work-from-home opportunities can be found in WhatJobs.  A job search engine that instantly displays the most current job vacancies advertised across their desired location and job sector.