essay about advantages of work from home

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.

essay about advantages of work from home

https://unsplash.com/photos/FHnnjk1Yj7Y

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.

This post was contributed and made possible by the support of our readers.

Working From Home Essay

In this working from home essay for IELTS you have to discuss whether you think that working from home has more advantages or disadvantages.

This was a recent question from the test. Take a look at the essay question:

These days, many people have their own computer and telephone, so it is quite easy for them to do their job at home.

Does working at home have more advantages or more disadvantages?

In this essay you have the following task:

Does working at home have more advantages or disadvantages?

This suggests that there are both pros and cons of working from home as you are asked which there are more of.

So in your answer to this working from home essay it's better to discuss both but write more about the side that you think there are more of so that the essay content reflects your opinion.

Try then to think of one reason for one side of the argument and two for the other side.

Organisation

It's usual in academic writing to start with the opinion that is the one you don't support so start with that one.

So based on this, the sample working from home essay is organised as follows:

Have more control of time ( advantage)
Loneliness (disadvantage)
Less influence in the company ( disadvantage)

So in this case, the writer thinks of course that there are more disadvantages and this should be clearly stated when you give your opinion in the introduction and / or conclusion.

Now take a look at the model answer.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience or knowledge.

Write at least 250 words.

Model Answer:

In the present age it is common for people to work from home because of advances in technology. On balance, I would argue that this has more negative impacts than positive.

One advantage of working from home is the freedom it provides. Home workers can organise their work around their home life as they can stop or start work as they please, and thus if, for example, they have children, they can easily arrange to take them and pick them up from school. They can also undertake any other tasks that they need to do during the day, such as doing the laundry or shopping, and then finish work later. Overall then, employees have more control over their lives.

Despite these positive factors, however, there are a number of disadvantages. The first of these is the fact that those who work at home nearly all the time will not be mixing with colleagues. When people are at work, they are always surrounded by others, but at home, an employee is likely to be alone most the time. This may lead to feelings of loneliness due to a lack of interaction.

Another drawback is the fact that one may have less influence in the company. It is often the case that important decisions arise on the spur of the moment as unexpected issues arise. If an employee is not there, others may have to step in. If this occurs on a regular basis, the employees contribution to the company may decline, meaning a higher probability of getting overlooked for things such as promotion.

In conclusion, although there are positives and negatives related to working from home, there are more negative impacts. Employees should therefore consider carefully whether working from home is the best choice.

(293 Words)

This working from home essay would get a high score as it meets the requirements of the task, which is to discuss the pros and cons of working from home and state which there are more of.

It is also coherent and cohesive, with paragraphing used to good effect and good linking within and between sentences.

There is a good range of lexis (vocabulary) in the essay and it is used accurately with good collocations.

There is also a good mix of complex sentences and structures and again the grammatical accuracy is very good.

<<< Back

Next >>>

More Advantages & Disadvantages Essays:

Essay Locally Grown Produce: Should people buy from local farms?

IELTS sample essay locally grown produce. A recent question in the exam asked candidates to discuss whether only locally produced food should be consumed.

Model Traffic Problems Essay for the IELTS Teset

Traffic problems essay: This is a traffic problems essay and the specific topic is the taxing of car drivers in order to reduce these problems. You are asked to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of introducing such a policy to tackle the issue.

Model IELTS Essay: Are tablets and computers good for children?

This IELTS essay question is about whether tablets and computers are good for children. It is an essay question where you have to assess whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. You should make sure you discuss both sides of the issue.

Internet & Cell Phone Essay: Do the pros outweigh the cons?

In this Internet and Cell Phone Essay you have to discuss the pros and cons of the ways in which people relate to each other socially using phones & internet.

Decreasing House Sizes Essay

In this decreasing house sizes essay for IELTS you have to discuss the pros and cons of smaller house sizes and gardens.

Online Fraud Essay: The Pros and Cons of Personal Information Online

This online fraud essay is about the way in which people place their personal information on the internet and whether this is a positive or negative development.

Oil and Gas Essay: Should we drill for new sources in remote places?

This IELTS oil and gas essay discusses how demand for these fuels is increasing and thus whether we should find new sources in remote and untouched areas.

Age Discrimination at Work Essay: Are new laws needed?

This IELTS Age Discrimination at Work Essay is a real question from the test that appeared in August 2018. View a model answer and get tips and strategies on how to answer the question.

Food Additives Essay: Is it dangerous to place additives in food?

Food additives essay: This is basically an advantages and disadvantages essay. You need to be careful with the word ‘outweigh’ as this often confuses students.

Peer Pressure and Young People Essay

This peer pressure and young people essay for IELTS is an advantage disadvantage type question, focusing on whether peer pressure is negative or positive.

Playing Computer Games Essay: What are the pros and cons for children?

Computer games essay: This page analyzes a computer games essay and also notes how you can make good use of the question to plan and organize your essay. You have to be careful with this essay as there is a second part to the question that is not about the pros and cons.

Any comments or questions about this page or about IELTS? Post them here. Your email will not be published or shared.

Before you go...

Check out the ielts buddy band 7+ ebooks & courses.

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

Click on the HTML link code below.
Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.

Band 7+ eBooks

"I think these eBooks are FANTASTIC!!! I know that's not academic language, but it's the truth!"

Linda, from Italy, Scored Band 7.5

IELTS Modules:

Other resources:.

All Lessons
Band Score Calculator
Writing Feedback
Speaking Feedback
Teacher Resources
Free Downloads
Recent Essay Exam Questions
Books for IELTS Prep
Useful Links

Recent Articles

Apr 06, 24 10:22 AM

Latest IELTS Writing Topics - Recent Exam Questions

Apr 04, 24 02:36 AM

IELTS Essay: English as a Global Language

Apr 03, 24 03:49 PM

Important pages

IELTS Writing IELTS Speaking IELTS Listening IELTS Reading All Lessons Vocabulary Academic Task 1 Academic Task 2 Practice Tests

Connect with us

IELTS is a registered trademark of University of Cambridge, the British Council, and IDP Education Australia. This site and its owners are not affiliated, approved or endorsed by the University of Cambridge ESOL, the British Council, and IDP Education Australia.

Why Working From Home Is Better Essay

Introduction.

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.

Benefits of Working Remotely

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.

Works Cited

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.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 27). Why Working From Home Is Better. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-working-from-home-is-better/

"Why Working From Home Is Better." IvyPanda , 27 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/why-working-from-home-is-better/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Why Working From Home Is Better'. 27 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Why Working From Home Is Better." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-working-from-home-is-better/.

1. IvyPanda . "Why Working From Home Is Better." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-working-from-home-is-better/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Why Working From Home Is Better." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-working-from-home-is-better/.

Free Internet and Traffic Jams Elimination
Issues on Roads in the Middle East
Structural Disparities and Traffic Jams in US South
Why More Companies Should Allow Employees to Work Remotely?
Importance of Designing an Interface Model
Traffic in New York
The Problem of Non-Compliance With Traffic Rules
The Concept of Remote and Office Working
Remote Working: Impact of Technological Development
Bottlenecks in a process
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Person-Centered Care
E. Durkheim and G. Simmel's Sociological Theories
"The Culture Industry" by Adorno & Horkheimer
Power in Lukes', Gaventa's, and Mouffe's Views
Today's Kant and Modern State of Three Cultures

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.

Essay on Work From Home

Students are often asked to write an essay on Work 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 Work From Home

Introduction.

Work from home is a flexible work arrangement where employees perform their job duties from their homes. It’s also known as telecommuting or remote work.

Working from home has several benefits. It saves commuting time, provides a comfortable work environment, and offers flexibility.

However, it also has challenges like distractions, lack of social interaction, and difficulty in separating work and personal life.

Despite the challenges, work from home is becoming increasingly popular due to advancements in technology and the need for flexible work arrangements.

Also check:

10 Lines on Work From Home

250 Words Essay on Work From Home

The concept of ‘Work From Home’ (WFH) has gained significant momentum in the wake of the digital revolution and more recently, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It involves performing job duties from home or a location other than a traditional office setup, leveraging technology to stay connected.

Advantages of WFH

WFH offers numerous advantages. Firstly, it eliminates commuting, saving time and reducing carbon footprints. Secondly, it offers a flexible schedule, allowing individuals to balance work and personal life more effectively. Thirdly, it can lead to increased productivity as employees work in their comfort zones, free from office distractions.

Challenges of WFH

However, WFH is not without its challenges. The lack of physical interaction can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. It also blurs the line between personal and professional life, potentially leading to burnout. Additionally, it requires self-discipline and time management skills, which not everyone may possess.

The Future of WFH

The future of WFH is promising. Companies are realizing that remote work does not compromise productivity and can, in fact, reduce operational costs. However, to make WFH truly effective, organizations need to invest in digital tools and foster a culture of trust and accountability.

In conclusion, WFH is a significant trend shaping the future of work. It offers numerous benefits but also poses unique challenges. As the world continues to navigate the digital age, it is imperative to understand and adapt to this new work paradigm.

500 Words Essay on Work From Home

Introduction to work from home.

The concept of Work From Home (WFH) has been a significant paradigm shift in the modern corporate world. It is a flexible working arrangement that allows employees to perform their tasks from their homes, leveraging technology and digital platforms. This essay delves into the intricacies of WFH, its advantages, drawbacks, and the future implications.

Advantages of Work From Home

WFH offers numerous benefits to both employees and employers. For employees, it eliminates the need for commuting, saving time and reducing stress. It provides a more flexible schedule, allowing individuals to balance their professional and personal lives more effectively. This flexibility often results in increased productivity, as employees can work during their peak energy times.

For employers, WFH can lead to cost savings in terms of reduced office space and utility bills. It also widens the talent pool as geographical restrictions are no longer a barrier in hiring. Furthermore, with the reduction in commuting, it contributes to environmental sustainability by reducing carbon emissions.

Drawbacks of Work From Home

Despite its advantages, WFH is not without its challenges. A significant issue is the blurring of boundaries between work and personal life, leading to the risk of overworking. The lack of face-to-face interaction can also result in feelings of isolation and may impact team cohesion and communication.

For employers, managing a remote workforce can be challenging. It requires robust technology infrastructure, effective communication tools, and new management styles. There are also concerns about data security and maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive information.

The Future of Work From Home

The future of WFH looks promising, with many companies planning to adopt hybrid models, combining remote and office work. This approach aims to maximize the benefits of both arrangements while minimizing their drawbacks.

However, it also necessitates a rethinking of traditional work models. It requires a shift in organizational culture, with an emphasis on results rather than hours worked. It also demands the development of digital competencies, both for employees and managers.

In conclusion, WFH is a complex phenomenon with multifaceted implications. While it offers numerous benefits, it also presents significant challenges. As we move forward, the key lies in finding a balanced approach that maximizes the advantages of WFH while mitigating its drawbacks. The future of work is likely to be a blend of remote and office-based work, requiring adaptability, resilience, and digital proficiency from all stakeholders.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Work Ethics and Professionalism
Essay on Work and Leisure
Essay on Women’s Rights

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

Happy studying!

One Comment

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.

This is what people love the most about working from home

COVID-19 COVID-19 Future of Work Future of Work Workforce and Employment Workforce and Employment

Have you been working from home? Image: Corinne Kutz/Unsplash

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Felix Richter

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} COVID-19 is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:.

A new survey highlights what Americans have enjoyed the most when working from home.
68% benefitted from no longer having to commute, 63% enjoyed more flexible hours, while not having to dress in smart clothes came third.
Many workers will now be reluctant to give up these perks as workplaces begin to reopen.

As vaccination rates climb and case numbers drop in many parts of the world, companies are preparing for life after the pandemic. In many cases, that involves bringing workers back to their offices. And while a return to the pre-pandemic working model may have been considered a foregone conclusion at the onset of the pandemic, things have changed over the past 16 months as many workers have developed a taste for a more flexible working model.

According to a YouGov survey among remote workers in the United States, the lack of a commute is the most obvious benefit of working from home. Flexible hours and the ability to dress more casually are also high on the list, with the ability to do simple chores during working hours and spending more time with family following close behind.

Have you read?

Is it time remote workers are given the ‘right to disconnect’ while at home, home-office, hq, hybrid or work-from-anywhere this is what businesses are planning.

Overall it can be said that many employees have embraced the new situation and are reluctant to give up their new freedoms. And while many executives would certainly prefer to return to the old model, getting the genie back into the bottle looks close to impossible at this point.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Health and Healthcare Systems .chakra .wef-17xejub{-webkit-flex:1;-ms-flex:1;flex:1;justify-self:stretch;-webkit-align-self:stretch;-ms-flex-item-align:stretch;align-self:stretch;} .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

This Earth Day we consider the impact of climate change on human health

Shyam Bishen and Annika Green

April 22, 2024

Scientists have invented a method to break down 'forever chemicals' in our drinking water. Here’s how

Johnny Wood

April 17, 2024

Young people are becoming unhappier, a new report finds

Promoting healthy habit formation is key to improving public health. Here's why

Adrian Gore

April 15, 2024

What's 'biophilic design' and how can it benefit neurodivergent people?

Fatemeh Aminpour, Ilan Katz and Jennifer Skattebol

Why stemming the rise of antibiotic resistance will be an historic achievement

Carel du Marchie Sarvaas

April 11, 2024

Pros and Cons of Working From Home

Be aware of the benefits and drawbacks of working from home when considering your ideal work environment.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home may have seemed like a perk that only freelancers got to do. Now, many more full-time employees have experienced working remotely or in a hybrid role.

Smiling young male entrepreneur browsing the internet with a laptop while sitting on a sofa working from home

Getty Images

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the pandemic has resulted in over one-third of companies across a wide range of industries increasing telework for some or all of their employees. The BLS also reports that around 60% of the organizations that expanded their telework options are planning to keep them indefinitely.

If you recently joined the ranks of virtual staff, your visions of the remote working life may have been dashed by reality. Working from home may sound like an ideal situation, if you've imagined simply rolling out of bed and arriving at your home office in moments, without the hassles of first making yourself presentable and then commuting to a workplace with a boss and colleagues who may drive you crazy .

In reality, though, just like working in an office, remote work comes with pros and cons. The following pros and cons list emerged after conducting informal interviews with more than 100 people with remote jobs. Read on for some positive aspects of telecommuting and the challenges that come with a work-from-home lifestyle.

Benefits of Working From Home

Pro: more flexibility to take care of appointments and errands. .

Pro: Fewer interruptions from meetings and chitchat.
Pro: No commute time or expense.
Pro: More time spent with family.

Pro: You can often do your work when you're most productive.

Pro: you can get more done., pro: you can save money on your work wardrobe., pro: the ability to live where you want to..

One of the hardest things about committing to a 9-to-5 desk job is that it prevents you from being able to handle almost anything else that comes up in your life, whether attending a routine dentist appointment or picking a sick kid up from school. When you work from home, while you still have to meet your deadlines and be available when you say you will be, you generally have wider bandwidth to tend to other responsibilities without jeopardizing your job.

Pro: There are fewer interruptions from meetings and chitchat.

It's easier to get into a deep state of focused work when you're in your home office without colleagues dropping by and sitting down impromptu to talk about their weekends. Limiting unnecessary interruptions from your colleagues and boss is a big plus of working from home and is one reason many remote workers are often more productive than office-based workers. While you may need to dial in for specific meetings, you'll likely get a break from attending several others – many of which may be unnecessary to your role – that confront staff workers daily.

Pro: There is no commute time or expense.

You can save a lot of money and avoid wasting hours spent getting to and from work when your office is right down the hall. Avoiding traffic battles tops the list of benefits for some of those who work from home. Many remote workers also mentioned saving money by eschewing a pricey professional wardrobe unless they meet with clients.

Pro: More time spent with family.

Office workers must kiss their loved ones goodbye each morning when heading off to work; not so for virtual workers, who can work side by side with a work-from-home spouse or with kids who are learning in a digital classroom . By doing away with the commute time, there is more time to be spent with loved ones.

When you work in an office, your schedule is rarely your own. Between the aforementioned interruptions from colleagues and meetings, plus your boss hovering nearby with agenda items and to-dos, accomplishing your focus work may be a "catch as catch can" situation, grabbing time to think and compose important reports and communications between events that others have imposed.

It's still always essential when working from home to be mindful of your team's needs and be available to dial in for virtual meetings. But remote employees generally have greater latitude to select their time of peak productivity to do their most important work and – depending on who else is working at home with them – have more quiet time to hone in on tasks that require concentration.

A number of recent studies have confirmed the growing body of research that prove working from home can help you be more productive than you can in an office, with stats showing productivity increases of up to 77%. It makes sense when you consider the above points that you have fewer interruptions and can work when you’re at your best while working remotely.

In addition to saving drive time and gas expenses, the work-from-home crowd can generally save on clothing costs as well. While you may need to have professional garb at the ready for video calls (at least for your top half on camera), most who work from home have more freedom to wear what they want while they work.

While some employers have restrictions about where you can live as a remote employee and may change your pay according to the area you reside in, a huge perk of the remote life is the ability to choose your location without needing to worry about a daily commute. Even if you’re in a hybrid role or need to make occasional visits to the office for meetings, if you don’t need to drive in each day, you have a wider range of possible places to settle besides right near the office.

Cons of Working From Home

Con: no physical separation between work and leisure time. .

Con: Easy to misread cues via electronic communications.

Con: You have to make the effort to get a change of scenery.

Con: Less in-person contact with co-workers.

Con: You are not on-site for in-office perks.

Con: you have to be more self-motivated., con: some bosses may be biased against those who aren’t in the office..

Many who work from home lamented that they often find themselves working around the clock, since their labor has no definite start or end times; those lines can often be blurred. As a result, they sometimes feel as if they are always at work, making it difficult to shift to the post-work relaxation mode that many office workers take for granted.

The absence of an obvious division between the personal and professional realms means some remote workers get distracted by housework. Setting boundaries and sticking to them is important when you're working from home.

Con: It's easy to misread cues via electronic communications.

While few who work from home expressed feeling "lonely," as is typically assumed, many did point to the difficulty of getting the tone right through digital communication systems, such as email, chat, social media and text. Without body language, facial expressions and other cues, remote employees have to put in extra effort to maintain positive communications.

What can be a blessing can also become a curse in the form of cabin fever. Some freelancers and others who work from home lamented that where they work during the day is the exact same place where they'll be sitting later that evening; getting involved in their work often translates to spending a huge portion of the day indoors. Pre-pandemic, many stressed the importance of scheduling lunches and other meetings to keep them in the mix and avoid the rut of never leaving the house.

Con: There is less in-person contact with co-workers.

While you may have more time with loved ones when working from a home office, the flipside is less opportunity for face time (minus a screen) with people at your company. If your co-workers drive you crazy, then reduced time on-site might be a perk for you. But if you enjoy office-based camaraderie and like to be able to socialize with your team in person, then the remote life might make you miserable.

You can't swing by the break room and grab a doughnut or hit the company gym if you're working from home. This may be more of a disadvantage for workers in industries such as tech, with impressive on-site offerings like game rooms and chef-made food among their company benefits. If there's a perk you like about being in the office, then working from home may make you miss it.

If you’re the type of person who procrastinates working unless a boss is breathing down your neck, then you might find yourself underperforming in a work-from-home role. Remote workers have to motivate themselves to get the job done, which puts more onus on people working from home to manage their time wisely to complete their projects, instead of having someone else setting the timelines and spurring them along.

A study by researchers at the University of California at Davis and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that “face time” – the amount of time that you’re seen at work either within normal business hours or outside of them – can affect how your boss and others perceive you at work. If you’re not in the office and others are, some managers may be either intentionally or unintentionally biased against you. You may find that your contributions aren’t noticed or appreciated as much by your team and may feel compelled to make extra efforts to keep on everyone’s radar screen.

Weighing the pros and cons of working from home has become even more important in the wake of the pandemic, since many companies are now giving their employees the option to not come back into the office. If you are given the choice to consider working from home permanently, be sure to think through each of the pros and cons of working from home to land on a solution that matches your priorities. Remote work has clear benefits, but no situation is perfect. Understanding the reasons to work from home – as well as the reasons not to – can go a long way in learning how to work from home successfully .

Most Stressful Jobs

Tags: careers , work-life balance , Company Culture , money , personal finance

About On Careers

Our expert contributors give their best advice on answering common interview questions, perfecting job applications, negotiating salary and more.

Find savvy job advice from the brains behind top careers blogs and websites, including Robin Madell, Robin Reshwan and Hallie Crawford.

13 Signs You May Be Facing a Tech Layoff

Jamela Adam and Janica Ingram April 11, 2024

Why You Feel Disengaged at Work

Robin Madell April 8, 2024

9 Sites for Legit Remote Jobs

Robin Madell April 3, 2024

7 Best Technology Jobs in the U.S.

Jamela Adam March 26, 2024

What Are Soft Skills?

Hallie Crawford March 25, 2024

11 Best High-Paying Business Jobs

Jamela Adam March 21, 2024

8 Best Finance Jobs to Pursue

Jamela Adam March 19, 2024

14 High-Paying, No-Degree Jobs

Jamela Adam March 14, 2024

The 15 Best Jobs That Help People

Jamela Adam March 12, 2024

25 Jobs That Pay $80K or More

Jamela Adam March 7, 2024

16 Best Jobs for High School Graduates

Jamela Adam Feb. 29, 2024

15 Best Jobs You've Never Heard Of

Jamela Adam Feb. 27, 2024

What Is the 'Act Your Wage?'

Robin Madell Feb. 23, 2024

20 Best Jobs for Work-Life Balance

Jamela Adam Feb. 22, 2024

15 Jobs to Consider for a Career Change

Jamela Adam Feb. 14, 2024

What Is Shift Shock?

Robin Madell Feb. 7, 2024

10 Best Part-Time Jobs to Pay the Bills

Jamela Adam Jan. 26, 2024

10 Best Jobs That Allow You to Travel

Jamela Adam Jan. 22, 2024

Most Popular

English and social studies teachers pioneer ai usage in schools, study finds.

12 days ago

TeachMeforFree Review

Best summarising strategies for students, how to cite page numbers in apa.

13 days ago

Reddit Users Advise Against Using ChatGPT for Technical Reports, But Why?

Employees should be able to work from home more often essay sample, example.

To allow employees to work from home means to balance the eternal “work-family” scales. According to a Penn State study, being able to work outside of the office (at home, mostly) helps to avoid typical conflict situations that arise when a person cannot spend enough time with their family. Besides, working from home relieves an employee of the daily stress connected to the necessity to get to their office regardless of health conditions, weather, family circumstances, and so on (Salary.com).

According to the Work Without Walls survey, among the benefits connected to working from home are the following: a less stressful environment (38%), a quieter atmosphere (43%), an elimination of a long commute (44%), less distractions (44%), increased productivity (45%), saving money on gas (55%), and a great work/home balance (60%). At the same time, according to the survey, the lack of control and the inability to see results of work in practice may negatively affect productivity of those employees who work from home (Forbes).

Organizing an Essay Course

Subscribe to our mailing list, w ill give you actionable steps in organizing your essays.

Working from home generally improves employees’ satisfaction with their lives and workplace ; reduces attrition and the number of unscheduled absences due to poor health conditions and other reasons; increases productivity due to fewer distracting factors, more comfortable working conditions; saves employer’s (and employee’s) money and minimizes chances of workplace discrimination; provides employees with opportunities for underemployment, and so on (Globalworkplaceanalytics.com).

The Internet allows millions of employees whose duties do not require them to be present in the office to work from home. Although many employers do not seem to be enthusiastic about letting their employees work from home, this practice is in many ways beneficial for both the employer and the worker. In particular, working from home allows employees to successfully maintain a work-family balance; an increased level of productivity, decreased stress, less discrimination, economy, and opportunities for freelancing and underemployment are among the most frequently named benefits of working from home. Therefore, employers should consider enabling this practice more often.

Persuasive essays are not just a school type of work. You might need this style of writing on many occasions, maybe even to get a promotion at work. This text is a good example to get inspired. Nevertheless, when you find yourself struggling a bit, you can search through the best online essay writing services for help and useful advice.

“Top 10 Benefits of Working from Home (Survey Results).” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/12/18/benefits-working-from-home/>

“5 Reasons to Let Employees Work from Home.” Salary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. <http://business.salary.com/5-reasons-to-let-employees-work-from-home/slide/2/>

“Advantages of Telecommuting for Companies.” Global Workplace Analytics. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2015. <http://globalworkplaceanalytics.com/resources/costs-benefits>

*Note: Make sure your Reference Page formatting alignes with your requirements. If you need ACM citations don’t hesitate to use acm format generator tool to help with those.

Comments (0)

Welcome to A*Help comments!

We’re all about debate and discussion at A*Help.

We value the diverse opinions of users, so you may find points of view that you don’t agree with. And that’s cool. However, there are certain things we’re not OK with: attempts to manipulate our data in any way, for example, or the posting of discriminative, offensive, hateful, or disparaging material.

Comments are closed.

More from Best Persuasive Essay Examples

May 28 2023

How does outdoor exercises impact our health and well-being? Essay Sample, Example

Should Screen Time Be Limited? Essay Sample, Example

Why Video Games are Good for the Brain. Essay Sample, Example

Remember Me

Is English your native language ? Yes No

What is your profession ? Student Teacher Writer Other

Forgotten Password?

Username or Email

9 Benefits of Working From Home, According to Experts

Workplaces certainly look different from what they were in 2015 when Stanford University economics professor Nicholas Bloom, a renowned work-from-home-advocate, published the paper “ Does Working From Home Work? Evidence From a Chinese Experiment .” Evidence from the two-year, randomized working-from-home trial at Chinese travel agency Ctrip added up to a resounding “yes.” Bloom and his colleagues found that Ctrip call center employees who telecommuted were more productive than their peers in the office, and less likely to quit their jobs.

In response to the pandemic, many companies ended up with their own experiments with the benefits of working from home . Hybrid work, allowing flexibility with both in-person and virtual work, has become increasingly popular and changed the expectations of employees .

In order to retain talent , many companies today must consider allowing employees to work from home. An October 2021 Gallup’s State of the Workforce study conducted in May to June 2021 showed that 91 percent of employees desire at least some type of remote work.

We asked three experts — Leanna Lee, founder of content marketing agency Lost Lass; Michael Pryor, head of Trello at Atlassian; and the aforementioned Professor Bloom — how working from home benefits workers and employers alike.

The Benefits of Working From Home for Employees

Working from home gives employees their commute time back and allows for a personalized workspace, among other advantages. When practiced correctly, the benefits of working from home are numerous and can lead to a healthier and more productive workforce .

Benefits of Working From Home for Employees

More autonomy

Fewer distractions

Customizable workstations, travel opportunities.

Not commuting, as Bloom and his co-authors note in their paper on working from home, can save employees an immense amount of time. The average American spends about 55 minutes , round-trip, commuting each day. In Bloom’s study, the group that worked from home normally spent an average of 80 minutes commuting in Shanghai.

Not commuting literally adds an hour to each day — and more than a week to each year — while saving employees from the hassles of traffic and train delays.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” Lee said, of her commute — which consists of walking from her living area to her attic office. “It creates a sense of going to work without actually having to go anywhere.”

More Autonomy

“No one is busy their entire workday,” Lee said — but in an office, you’re often expected to “sit in one place for eight to 10 hours a day and at least look busy.”

Not so working from home, which Lee has done for most of her professional life. “You don’t have as much oversight,” she said. That means less micromanaging . At home, she can manage her own time, work when she’s most productive and take care of her mental health. She manages depression and anxiety, and in her part-time office jobs, she said, “there was just not much flexibility for disability.”

For Bloom, this is important: He doesn’t recommend working from just any home. In the “Does Working From Home Work?” study, participants were only eligible to work from home if they had a home office and “exclusive quiet access to [it] throughout their working day.” (Bedrooms, for what it’s worth, didn’t count.)

A remote workstation like this, Bloom and his coauthors argue, makes home a peaceful workspace compared to the office, and bumps workers’ productivity up as part of the benefits of remote work.

Pryor sees the appeal of a private, quiet workspace too. “It’s easier to do deep work when you’re in a space that’s conducive to it,” he said. “Remote work can give you that.” So can a private office, though, or Atlassian’s “uber-silent” library .

Work Smarter, Not More Will Remote Work Inspire Companies to Abandon Bad Habits?

At home, Lee appreciates that she can create a personalized workspace — it doesn’t have to be contained, like a cubicle, and it doesn’t have to fit into a larger open office plan.

She’s decorated her home office with custom lighting, she reported, and she has an entire wall covered in Post-Its. “I’m a compulsive note-taker,” she said — so much so that her Post-Its sometimes overflow from the wall onto the window pane.

She also has a couch across from her desk, where she takes breaks when she’s stumped on a project. She likes that her office is a place where “I can not only be productive, but take a break from being productive.”

Meeting remotely Try These Strategies to Run Better Remote Meetings

“I really enjoy being able to take my work ... anywhere I go,” Lee said. “It just opens up an entire world to you, really.” Some people used the remote work flexibility enabled by the pandemic to work away from their home bases to visit family and friends or just explore new places.

Working in a radically different timezone from your boss can make it hard to communicate in real time — but it’s not impossible, especially if you prepare for the trip in advance. Lee, for instance, has family in the United Kingdom, and often visits for months at a time, enjoying the benefits of remote work all the while.

The Benefits of Working From Home for Companies

Companies also have plenty to gain from embracing a work-from-home policy. Cutting down costs on office spaces and reducing employee turnover rates are a couple of the benefits of working from home that make this transition a worthwhile process for businesses.

Benefits of Working From Home for Companies

Recruiting boost, smaller offices, lower turnover, improved productivity.

Before Trello was acquired by Atlassian in 2017, Trello’s workforce was roughly 80 percent remote, working from homes across the country. Pryor noted that allowing remote work made recruiting much easier. When you list a job opening in New York, he said, most of the people applying already live in the city. Not so with remote positions, which can attract hordes of talented people living outside major tech hubs.

“There’s no limit on who can apply to the job,” he said. “You get more qualified candidates ... you essentially open the funnel.”

Part of the reason Ctrip ran a work-from-home experiment in the first place, Bloom’s paper explains, was rent. The Shanghai real estate market was thriving, and the price of renting office space had skyrocketed. Allowing call center employees to work from home allowed Ctrip, in turn, to rent a smaller, cheaper office.

Leadership knew this would be a money-saver going into the experiment. By the end, they knew precisely how much it saved them: about $1,400 per year per remote employee in rent, IT support and other office-related costs.

Bloom doesn’t recommend taking this to the extreme and moving to a fully remote workforce, though. Sure, it would save a ton of money, but any inflexible arrangement has the potential to alienate employees. After all, when the Ctrip experiment ended, more than half of the remote workforce chose to start commuting again .

Offering employees the option and benefits of remote work helps with retention as well as recruiting. In Bloom’s experiment, the group working from home quit their jobs about half as frequently as the group working in the office.

Pryor, too, has seen the retention benefits of working from home. “The ability to be flexible ... helps you,” he said. Often, when people leave a job, it’s not because they’ve found a better one. “Things that happen in life outside of work tend to pull people in different directions and make them choose to switch companies.” When employees can take their jobs wherever they go, they switch less often.

Millions of workers have left their jobs as a part of the Great Resignation. Lack of work-from-home flexibility is one of the many reasons why employees are quitting their jobs recently. Companies that offer the benefits of remote work flexibility stand to retain more talent .

Bloom found that Ctrip employees who worked from home were roughly 13 percent more productive than their counterparts in the office — which means they did almost an extra day’s worth of work every week.

This could be because working from home shifts focus from “looking busy,” as Lee put it, to actual production.

“You have to focus more on the outcomes,” Pryor said.

But it’s not just individual employees that are more productive when they work remotely. The improved retention makes the whole company more efficient. Ctrip saved roughly $260 per employee per year on reduced turnover , Bloom and his colleagues found.

“That actually is a big productivity boost,” Pryor agreed. On a micro level, it means less contact-switching and confusion as people churn in and out of key roles; on a macro level, it means less spending on recruiting and onboarding.

To support employees with the benefits of working from home, it is important that companies invest in tools for collaboration and productivity .

Alexandria Jacobson contributed reporting to this story.

Great Companies Need Great People. That's Where We Come In.

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here .

Loading metrics

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary, Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Balazs Aczel,
Marton Kovacs,
Tanja van der Lippe,
Barnabas Szaszi

Published: March 25, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127
Peer Review
Reader Comments

The flexibility allowed by the mobilization of technology disintegrated the traditional work-life boundary for most professionals. Whether working from home is the key or impediment to academics’ efficiency and work-life balance became a daunting question for both scientists and their employers. The recent pandemic brought into focus the merits and challenges of working from home on a level of personal experience. Using a convenient sampling, we surveyed 704 academics while working from home and found that the pandemic lockdown decreased the work efficiency for almost half of the researchers but around a quarter of them were more efficient during this time compared to the time before. Based on the gathered personal experience, 70% of the researchers think that in the future they would be similarly or more efficient than before if they could spend more of their work-time at home. They indicated that in the office they are better at sharing thoughts with colleagues, keeping in touch with their team, and collecting data, whereas at home they are better at working on their manuscript, reading the literature, and analyzing their data. Taking well-being also into account, 66% of them would find it ideal to work more from home in the future than they did before the lockdown. These results draw attention to how working from home is becoming a major element of researchers’ life and that we have to learn more about its influencer factors and coping tactics in order to optimize its arrangements.

Citation: Aczel B, Kovacs M, van der Lippe T, Szaszi B (2021) Researchers working from home: Benefits and challenges. PLoS ONE 16(3): e0249127. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127

Editor: Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung, The University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG

Received: September 24, 2020; Accepted: March 11, 2021; Published: March 25, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Aczel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All research materials, the collected raw and processed anonymous data, just as well the code for data management and statistical analyses are publicly shared on the OSF page of the project: OSF: https://osf.io/v97fy/ .

Funding: TVL's contribution is part of the research program Sustainable Cooperation – Roadmaps to Resilient Societies (SCOOP). She is grateful to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) for their support in the context of its 2017 Gravitation Program (grant number 024.003.025).

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Fleeing from the Great Plague that reached Cambridge in 1665, Newton retreated to his countryside home where he continued working for the next year and a half. During this time, he developed his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation—fundamentally changing the path of science for centuries. Newton himself described this period as the most productive time of his life [ 1 ]. Is working from home indeed the key to efficiency for scientists also in modern times? A solution for working without disturbance by colleagues and being able to manage a work-life balance? What personal and professional factors influence the relation between productivity and working from home? These are the main questions that the present paper aims to tackle. The Covid-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to analyze the implications of working from home in great detail.

Working away from the traditional office is increasingly an option in today’s world. The phenomenon has been studied under numerous, partially overlapping terms, such as telecommuting, telework, virtual office, remote work, location independent working, home office. In this paper, we will use ‘working from home’ (WFH), a term that typically covers working from any location other than the dedicated area provided by the employer.

The practice of WFH and its effect on job efficiency and well-being are reasonably well explored outside of academia [ 2 , 3 ]. Internet access and the increase of personal IT infrastructure made WFH a growing trend throughout the last decades [ 4 ]. In 2015, over 12% of EU workers [ 5 ] and near one-quarter of US employees [ 6 ] worked at least partly from home. A recent survey conducted among 27,500 millennials and Gen Z-s indicated that their majority would like to work remotely more frequently [ 7 ]. The literature suggests that people working from home need flexibility for different reasons. Home-working is a typical solution for those who need to look after dependent children [ 8 ] but many employees just seek a better work-life balance [ 7 ] and the comfort of an alternative work environment [ 9 ].

Non-academic areas report work-efficiency benefits for WFH but they also show some downsides of this arrangement. A good example is the broad-scale experiment in which call center employees were randomly assigned to work from home or in the office for nine months [ 10 ]. A 13% work performance increase was found in the working from home group. These workers also reported improved work satisfaction. Still, after the experiment, 50% of them preferred to go back to the office mainly because of feeling isolated at home.

Home-working has several straightforward positive aspects, such as not having to commute, easier management of household responsibilities [ 11 ] and family demands [ 12 ], along with increased autonomy over time use [ 13 , 14 ], and fewer interruptions [ 15 , 16 ]. Personal comfort is often listed as an advantage of the home environment [e.g., 15 ], though setting up a home office comes with physical and infrastructural demands [ 17 ]. People working from home consistently report greater job motivation and satisfaction [ 4 , 11 , 18 , 19 ] which is probably due to the greater work-related control and work-life flexibility [ 20 ]. A longitudinal nationally representative sample of 30,000 households in the UK revealed that homeworking is positively related with leisure time satisfaction [ 21 ], suggesting that people working from home can allocate more time for leisure activities.

Often-mentioned negative aspects of WFH include being disconnected from co-workers, experiencing isolation due to the physical and social distance to team members [ 22 , 23 ]. Also, home-working employees reported more difficulties with switching off and they worked beyond their formal working hours [ 4 ]. Working from home is especially difficult for those with small children [ 24 ], but intrusion from other family members, neighbours, and friends were also found to be major challenges of WFH [e.g., 17 ]. Moreover, being away from the office may also create a lack of visibility and increases teleworkers’ fear that being out of sight limits opportunities for promotion, rewards, and positive performance reviews [ 25 ].

Importantly, increased freedom imposes higher demands on workers to control not just the environment, but themselves too. WFH comes with the need to develop work-life boundary control tactics [ 26 ] and to be skilled at self-discipline, self-motivation, and good time management [ 27 ]. Increased flexibility can easily lead to multitasking and work-family role blurring [ 28 ]. Table 1 provides non-comprehensive lists of mostly positive and mostly negative consequences of WFH, based on the literature reviewed here.

PPT PowerPoint slide
PNG larger image
TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127.t001

Compared to the private sector, our knowledge is scarce about how academics experience working from home. Researchers in higher education institutes work in very similar arrangements. Typically, they are expected to personally attend their workplace, if not for teaching or supervision, then for meetings or to confer with colleagues. In the remaining worktime, they work in their lab or, if allowed, they may choose to do some of their tasks remotely. Along with the benefits on productivity when working from home, academics have already experienced some of its drawbacks at the start of the popularity of personal computers. As Snizek observed in the ‘80s, “(f)aculty who work long hours at home using their microcomputers indicate feelings of isolation and often lament the loss of collegial feedback and reinforcement” [page 622, 29 ].

Until now, the academics whose WFH experience had been given attention were mostly those participating in online distance education [e.g., 30 , 31 ]. They experienced increased autonomy, flexibility in workday schedule, the elimination of unwanted distractions [ 32 ], along with high levels of work productivity and satisfaction [ 33 ], but they also observed inadequate communication and the lack of opportunities for skill development [ 34 ]. The Covid-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to study the WFH experience of a greater spectrum of academics, since at one point most of them had to do all their work from home.

We have only fragmented knowledge about the moderators of WFH success. We know that control over time is limited by the domestic tasks one has while working from home. The view that women’s work is more influenced by family obligations than men’s is consistently shown in the literature [e.g., 35 – 37 ]. Sullivan and Lewis [ 38 ] argued that women who work from home are able to fulfil their domestic role better and manage their family duties more to their satisfaction, but that comes at the expense of higher perceived work–family conflict [see also 39 ]. Not surprisingly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, female scientists suffered a greater disruption than men in their academic productivity and time spent on research, most likely due to demands of childcare [ 40 , 41 ].

In summary, until recently, the effect of WFH on academics’ life and productivity received limited attention. However, during the recent pandemic lockdown, scientists, on an unprecedented scale, had to find solutions to continue their research from home. The situation unavoidably brought into focus the merits and challenges of WFH on a level of personal experience. Institutions were compelled to support WFH arrangements by adequate regulations, services, and infrastructure. Some researchers and institutions might have found benefits in the new arrangements and may wish to continue WFH in some form; for others WFH brought disproportionately larger challenges. The present study aims to facilitate the systematic exploration and support of researchers’ efficiency and work-life balance when working from home.

Materials and methods

Our study procedure and analysis plan were preregistered at https://osf.io/jg5bz (all deviations from the plan are listed in S1 File ). The survey included questions on research work efficiency, work-life balance, demographics, professional and personal background information. The study protocol has been approved by the Institutional Review Board from Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary (approval number: 2020/131). The Transparency Report of the study, the complete text of the questionnaire items and the instructions are shared at our OSF repository: https://osf.io/v97fy/ .

As the objective of this study was to gain insight about researchers’ experience of WFH, we aimed to increase the size and diversity of our sample rather than ascertaining the representativeness of our sample. Therefore, we distributed our online survey link among researchers in professional newsletters, university mailing lists, on social media, and by sending group-emails to authors (additional details about sampling are in S1 File ). As a result of the nature of our sampling strategy, it is not known how many researchers have seen our participation request. Additionally, we did not collect the country of residence of the respondents. Responses analyzed in this study were collected between 2020-04-24 and 2020-07-13. Overall, 858 individuals started the survey and 154 were excluded because they did not continue the survey beyond the first question. As a result, 704 respondents were included in the analysis.

We sent the questionnaire individually to each of the respondents through the Qualtrics Mailer service. Written informed consent and access to the preregistration of the research was provided to every respondent before starting the survey. Then, respondents who agreed to participate in the study could fill out the questionnaire. To encourage participation, we offered that upon completion they can enter a lottery to win a 100 USD voucher.

This is a general description of the survey items. The full survey with the display logic and exact phrasing of the items is transported from Qualtrics and uploaded to the projects’ OSF page: https://osf.io/8ze2g/ .

Efficiency of research work.

The respondents were asked to compare the efficiency of their research work during the lockdown to their work before the lockdown. They were also asked to use their present and previous experience to indicate whether working more from home in the future would change the efficiency of their research work compared to the time before the lockdown. For both questions, they could choose among three options: “less efficient”; “more efficient”, and “similarly efficient”.

Comparing working from home to working in the office.

Participants were asked to compare working from home to working from the office. For this question they could indicate their preference on a 7-point dimension (1: At home; 7: In the office), along 15 efficiency or well-being related aspects of research work (e.g., working on the manuscript, maintaining work-life balance). These aspects were collected in a pilot study conducted with 55 researchers who were asked to indicate in free text responses the areas in which their work benefits/suffers when working from home. More details of the pilot study are provided in S1 File .

Actual and ideal time spent working from home.

To study the actual and ideal time spent working from home, researcher were asked to indicate on a 0–100% scale (1) what percentage of their work time they spent working from home before the pandemic and (2) how much would be ideal for them working from home in the future concerning both research efficiency and work-life balance.

Feasibility of working more from home.

With simple Yes/No options, we asked the respondents to indicate whether they think that working more from home would be feasible considering all their other duties (education, administration, etc.) and the given circumstances at home (infrastructure, level of disturbance).

Background information.

Background questions were asked by providing preset lists concerning their academic position (e.g., full professor), area of research (e.g., social sciences), type of workplace (e.g., purely research institute), gender, age group, living situation (e.g., single-parent with non-adult child(ren)), and the age and the number of their children.

The respondents were also asked to select one of the offered options to indicate: whether or not they worked more from home during the coronavirus lockdown than before; whether it is possible for them to collect data remotely; whether they have education duties at work; if their research requires intensive team-work; whether their home office is fully equipped; whether their partner was also working from home during the pandemic; how far their office is from home; whether they had to do home-schooling during the pandemic; whether there was someone else looking after their child(ren) during their work from home in lockdown. When the question did not apply to them, they could select the ‘NA’ option as well.

Data preprocessing and analyses

All the data preprocessing and analyses were conducted in R [ 42 ], with the use of the tidyverse packages [ 43 ]. Before the analysis of the survey responses, we read all the free-text comments to ascertain that they do not contain personal information and they are in line with the respondent’s answers. We found that for 5 items the respondents’ comments contradicted their survey choices (e.g., whether they have children), therefore, we excluded the responses of the corresponding items from further analyses (see S1 File ). Following the preregistration, we only conducted descriptive statistics of the survey results.

Background information

The summary of the key demographic information of the 704 complete responses is presented in Table 2 . A full summary of all the collected background information of the respondents are available in S1 File .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127.t002

Efficiency of research work

The results showed that 94% (n = 662) of the surveyed researchers worked more from home during the COVID-19 lockdown compared to the time before. Of these researchers, 47% found that due to working more from home their research became, in general, less efficient, 23% found it more efficient, and 30% found no difference compared to working before the lockdown. Within this database, we also explored the effect of the lockdown on the efficiency of people living with children (n = 290). Here, we found that 58% of them experienced that due to working more from home their research became, in general, less efficient, 20% found it more efficient, and 22% found no difference compared to working before the lockdown. Of those researchers who live with children, we found that 71% of the 21 single parents and 57% of the 269 partnered parents found working less efficient when working from home compared to the time before the lockdown.

When asking about how working more from home would affect the efficiency of their research after the lockdown, of those who have not already been working from home full time (n = 684), 29% assumed that it could make their research, in general, less efficient, 29% said that it would be more efficient, and 41% assumed no difference compared to the time before the lockdown ( Fig 1 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127.g001

Focusing on the efficiency of the subgroup of people who live with children (n = 295), we found that for 32% their research work would be less efficient, for 30% it would be no different, and for 38% it would be more efficient to work from home after the lockdown, compared to the time before the lockdown.

Comparing working from home to working in the office

When comparing working from home to working in the office in general, people found that they can better achieve certain aspects of the research in one place than the other. They indicated that in the office they are better at sharing thoughts with colleagues, keeping in touch with their team, and collecting data, whereas at home they are better at working on their manuscript, reading the literature, and analyzing their data ( Fig 2 ).

The bars represent response averages of the given aspects.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127.g002

Actual and ideal time spent working from home

We also asked the researchers how much of their work time they spent working from home in the past, and how much it would be ideal for them to work from home in the future concerning both research efficiency and well-being. Fig 3 shows the distribution of percentages of time working from home in the past and in an ideal future. Comparing these values for each researcher, we found that 66% of them want to work more from home in the future than they did before the lockdown, whereas 16% of them want to work less from home, and 18% of them want to spend the same percentage of their work time at home in the future as before. (These latter calculations were not preregistered).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127.g003

Feasibility of working more from home

Taken all their other duties (education, administration, etc.) and provided circumstances at home (infrastructure, level of disturbance), of researchers who would like to work more from home in the future (n = 461), 86% think that it would be possible to do so. Even among those who have teaching duties at work (n = 376), 84% think that more working from home would be ideal and possible.

Researchers’ work and life have radically changed in recent times. The flexibility allowed by the mobilization of technology and the continuous access to the internet disintegrated the traditional work-life boundary. Where, when, and how we work depends more and more on our own arrangements. The recent pandemic only highlighted an already existing task: researchers’ worklife has to be redefined. The key challenge in a new work-life model is to find strategies to balance the demands of work and personal life. As a first step, the present paper explored how working from home affects researchers’ efficiency and well-being.

Our results showed that while the pandemic-related lockdown decreased the work efficiency for almost half of the researchers (47%), around a quarter (23%) of them experienced that they were more efficient during this time compared to the time before. Based on personal experience, 70% of the researchers think that after the lockdown they would be similarly (41%) or more efficient (29%) than before if they could spend more of their work-time at home. The remaining 30% thought that after the lockdown their work efficiency would decrease if they worked from home, which is noticeably lower than the 47% who claimed the same for the lockdown period. From these values we speculate that some of the obstacles of their work efficiency were specific to the pandemic lockdown. Such obstacles could have been the need to learn new methods to teach online [ 44 ] or the trouble adapting to the new lifestyle [ 45 ]. Furthermore, we found that working from the office and working from home support different aspects of research. Not surprisingly, activities that involve colleagues or team members are better bound to the office, but tasks that need focused attention, such as working on the manuscript or analyzing the data are better achieved from home.

A central motivation of our study was to explore what proportion of their worktime researchers would find ideal to work from home, concerning both research efficiency and work-life balance. Two thirds of the researchers indicated that it would be better to work more from home in the future. It seemed that sharing work somewhat equally between the two venues is the most preferred arrangement. A great majority (86%) of those who would like to work more from home in the future, think that it would be possible to do so. As a conclusion, both the work and non-work life of researchers would take benefits should more WFH be allowed and neither workplace duties, nor their domestic circumstances are limits of such a change. That researchers have a preference to work more from home, might be due to the fact that they are more and more pressured by their work. Finishing manuscripts, and reading literature is easier to find time for when working from home.

A main message of the results of our present survey is that although almost half of the respondents reported reduced work efficiency during the lockdown, the majority of them would prefer the current remote work setting to some extent in the future. It is important to stress, however, that working from home is not equally advantageous for researchers. Several external and personal factors must play a role in researchers’ work efficiency and work-life balance. In this analysis, we concentrated only on family status, but further dedicated studies will be required to gain a deeper understanding of the complex interaction of professional, institutional, personal, and domestic factors in this matter. While our study could only initiate the exploration of academics’ WFH benefits and challenges, we can already discuss a few relevant aspects regarding the work-life interface.

Our data show that researchers who live with dependent children can exploit the advantages of working from home less than those who do not have childcare duties, irrespective of the pandemic lockdown. Looking after children is clearly a main source of people’s task overload and, as a result, work-family conflict [ 46 , 47 ]. As an implication, employers should pay special respect to employees’ childcare situations when defining work arrangements. It should be clear, however, that other caring responsibilities should also be respected such as looking after elderly or disabled relatives [ 48 ]. Furthermore, to avoid equating non-work life with family-life, a broader diversity of life circumstances, such as those who live alone, should be taken into consideration [ 49 ].

It seems likely that after the pandemic significantly more work will be supplied from home [ 50 ]. The more of the researchers’ work will be done from home in the future, the greater the challenge will grow to integrate their work and non-work life. The extensive research on work-life conflict, should help us examine the issue and to develop coping strategies applicable for academics’ life. The Boundary Theory [ 26 , 51 , 52 ] proved to be a useful framework to understand the work-home interface. According to this theory, individuals utilize different tactics to create and maintain an ideal level of work-home segmentation. These boundaries often serve as “mental fences” to simplify the environment into domains, such as work or home, to help us attend our roles, such as being an employee or a parent. These boundaries are more or less permeable, depending on how much the individual attending one role can be influenced by another role. Individuals differ in the degree to which they prefer and are able to segment their roles, but each boundary crossing requires a cognitive “leap” between these categories [ 53 ]. The source of conflict is the demands of the different roles and responsibilities competing for one’s physical and mental resources. Working from home can easily blur the boundary between work and non-work domains. The conflict caused by the intrusion of the home world to one’s work time, just as well the intrusion of work tasks to one’s personal life are definite sources of weakened ability to concentrate on one’s tasks [ 54 ], exhaustion [ 55 ], and negative job satisfaction [ 56 ].

What can researchers do to mitigate this challenge? Various tactics have been identified for controlling one’s borders between work and non-work. One can separate the two domains by temporal, physical, behavioral, and communicative segmentation [ 26 ]. Professionals often have preferences and self-developed tactics for boundary management. People who prefer tighter boundary management apply strong segmentation between work and home [ 57 , 58 ]. For instance, they don’t do domestic tasks in worktime (temporal segmentation), close their door when working from home (physical segmentation), don’t read work emails at weekends (behavioral segmentation), or negotiate strict boundary rules with family members (communicative segmentation). People on the other on one side of the segmentation-integration continuum, might not mind, or cannot avoid, ad-hoc boundary-crossings and integrate the two domains by letting private space and time be mixed with their work.

Researchers, just like other workers, need to develop new arrangements and skills to cope with the disintegration of the traditional work-life boundaries. To know how research and education institutes could best support this change would require a comprehensive exploration of the factors in researchers’ WFH life. There is probably no one-size-fits-all approach to promote employees’ efficiency and well-being. Life circumstances often limit how much control people can have over their work-life boundaries when working from home [ 59 ]. Our results strongly indicate that some can boost work efficiency and wellbeing when working from home, others need external solutions, such as the office, to provide boundaries between their life domains. Until we gain comprehensive insight about the topic, individuals are probably the best judges of their own situation and of what arrangements may be beneficial for them in different times [ 60 ]. The more autonomy the employers provide to researchers in distributing their work between the office and home (while not lowering their expectations), the more they let them optimize this arrangement to their circumstances.

Our study has several limitations: to investigate how factors such as research domain, seniority, or geographic location contribute to WFH efficiency and well-being would have needed a much greater sample. Moreover, the country of residence of the respondents was not collected in our survey and this factor could potentially alter the perception of WFH due to differing social and infrastructural factors. Whereas the world-wide lockdown has provided a general experience to WFH to academics, the special circumstances just as well biased their judgment of the arrangement. With this exploratory research, we could only scratch the surface of the topic, the reader can probably generate a number of testable hypotheses that would be relevant to the topic but we could not analyze in this exploration.

Newton working in lockdown became the idealized image of the home-working scientist. Unquestionably, he was a genius, but his success probably needed a fortunate work-life boundary. Should he had noisy neighbours, or taunting domestic duties, he might have achieved much less while working from home. With this paper, we aim to draw attention to how WFH is becoming a major element of researchers’ life and that we have to be prepared for this change. We hope that personal experience or the topic’s relevance to the future of science will invite researchers to continue this work.

Supporting information

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249127.s001

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Szonja Horvath, Matyas Sarudi, and Zsuzsa Szekely for their help with reviewing the free text responses.

View Article
Google Scholar
5. Parent-Thirion A, Biletta I, Cabrita J, Vargas O, Vermeylen G, Wilczynska A, et al. Sixth European working conditions survey: Overview report. Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working …; 2016.
6. US Department of Labor B of LS. American time use survey—2015 results. 2016;
7. Deloitte. The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2020: Millennials and Gen Zs hold the key to creating a “better normal” [Internet]. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu; 2020 [cited 2020 Jul 5]. https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html
PubMed/NCBI
23. Pinsonneault A, Boisvert M. The impacts of telecommuting on organizations and individuals: A review of the literature. In: Telecommuting and virtual offices: Issues and opportunities. IGI Global; 2001. p. 163–85.
40. Frederickson M. COVID-19’s gendered impact on academic productivity [Internet]. GitHub. 2020 [cited 2020 Jul 15]. https://github.com/drfreder/pandemic-pub-bias
50. Barrero JM, Bloom N, Davis SJ. Why Working From Home Will Stick. Univ Chic Becker Friedman Inst Econ Work Pap. 2020;(2020–174).
53. Zerubavel E. The fine line. University of Chicago Press; 1993.
58. Nippert-Eng C. Calendars and keys: The classification of “home” and “work”. In: Sociological Forum. Springer; 1996. p. 563–82.

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Workplace — Working from Home vs. Working in an Office

Working from Home Vs. Working in an Office

Categories: Workplace

About this sample

Words: 860 |

Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 860 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Productivity: working from home vs. working in an office, work-life balance and distractions, communication and collaboration, health and well-being, personal and professional life.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

Expert in: Life

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 1099 words

3 pages / 1458 words

1 pages / 587 words

1 pages / 515 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Workplace

To discuss the importance of diversity and inclusion this essay will first define these two concepts. Firstly, diversity is a concept that considers the many ways we are alike while respecting the ways we are different. When we [...]

Imagine a workplace where every employee brings a unique set of skills, perspectives, and experiences to the table. A place where diversity is not just tolerated, but celebrated. This is precisely the world that "The Office" [...]

Why is teamwork important in the workplace? Teamwork is a fundamental concept that underpins the success of organizations in today's complex and interconnected business world. This essay explores the significance of teamwork in [...]

There has been a growing recognition of the phenomenon of bullshit jobs, a term coined by anthropologist David Graeber in his 2013 essay "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs." Bullshit jobs refer to roles that are perceived as [...]

Communication is the strongest medium through which we can either build our connections with people or ruin it by creating misunderstandings. Hence to make our communication more effective we should make sure that we reduce [...]

The best way to involve workers in safety and health matters is to have a workplace safety and health committee or worker representative. This provides a formal system of involving workers in identifying hazards in the [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

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 .

Share with friends

Scan below qr code to share with your friends, related ielts tips.

Buying things on the Internet (Corrected essay)

Buying things on the Internet, such as books, air tickets and groceries,...

Countries are becoming more and more similar

Countries are becoming more and more similar because people are able to...

Water pollution (Corrected Essay)

Pollution of rivers, lakes and seas is a major concern for people who seek...

Some organisations believe that their employees should dress smartly

Some organisations believe that their employees should dress smartly. Others...

Homeschooling

Some people believe that teaching children at home is best for a child’s...

Thank you for contacting us!

We have received your message.

We will get back within 48 hours.

You have subscribed successfully.

Thank you for your feedback, we will investigate and resolve the issue within 48 hours.

Your answers has been saved successfully.

Add Credits

You do not have enough iot credits.

Your account does not have enough IOT Credits to complete the order. Please purchase IOT Credits to continue.

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.

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.

Discover: Time management techniques at the workplace for higher productivity

Why is time management important in the workplace essay ?

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.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating / 5. Vote count:

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

Partner Center

The Psychology of Short-Form Content: Why We Love Bite-Sized Videos

Updated: April 10, 2024

Published: April 09, 2024

Let me tell you the most challenging part of my job. Often, I will delete TikTok and Instagram from my phone because I can't help but waste time endlessly scrolling through these apps, watching dozens of short-form videos in one sitting.

A person watches a short-form video on their smartphone

Then, like clockwork, I redownload these apps because I must write about them for work. Thus, the cycle of endless scrolling continues.

Sure, I could blame the nature of the job, but my endless scrolling stems from the fact that I love short-form videos.

Download Now: Free State of Marketing Report [Updated for 2024]

And I'm not the only one. 73% of consumers prefer to watch short-form videos to learn about a product or service, and 56% of marketers reported that short-form video was the top trend they planned to invest in in 2024.

So, why are short-form videos so popular? Turns out there are a few reasons, one of which involved a bit of psychology. Let's get into it!

What are short-form videos?

Why are short-form videos so popular.

HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. HubSpot will share the information you provide to us with the following partners, who will use your information for similar purposes: Search Engine Journal, Litmus, Rock Content. You can unsubscribe from communications from HubSpot at any time. For more information, check out HubSpot's Privacy Policy . To unsubscribe from Search Engine Journal's communications, see Search Engine Journal's Privacy Policy . To unsubscribe from Litmus's communications, see Litmus's Privacy Policy . To unsubscribe from Rock Content's communications, see Rock Content's Privacy Policy .

The State of Marketing in 2024

HubSpot's Annual Inbound Marketing Trends Report

Top Marketing Channels
AI in Marketing
Managing Privacy
The Future of Marketing

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Short-form videos are videos that are less than 60 seconds in duration. However, some marketers and content creators agree that short-form videos can be up to 3 minutes. But, if you want my opinion, I would stick to the 60-second rule.

I take this stance because attention spans are getting shorter, but we'll get into that later.

Anyway, short-form videos deliver information in a digestible, bite-size format so viewers can quickly watch and bookmark the content if they're on the go or watch it multiple times.

There are a few reasons short-form videos are more popular than ever among consumers and marketers, and I‘ll visit those in a bit. For now, I want to get into the psychology of it all—that’s why we're here, right? Walk with me.

Consumer Attention Spans are Shrinking

Science tells us that one of the crucial reasons we love short-form videos is that our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.

Dr. Gloria Mark, a psychologist, recently wrote a book called Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness, and Productivity , and she says her research indicates people's attention spans have been shrinking over the last 20 years.

Dr. Mark shared her findings on Speaking of Psychology , an American Psychological Association podcast.

Her findings came from a decades-long experiment she participated in, which was first conducted by shadowing participants and tracking their activities via stopwatches.

“We would record the start time and the stop time,” she said.

She explains, “So you're on a screen where you're working in a Word doc. As soon as you get to that screen, we click start time. As soon as they turned away and checked the email, we clicked stop time for the Word document and start time for the email.”

Over time, logging techniques became more sophisticated as technology advanced, and it only made the pattern of shrinking attention spans clearer.

“So back in 2004, we found the average attention span on any screen to be two and a half minutes on average,” Dr. Mark recalls during the interview. “Throughout the years, it became shorter. So around 2012, we found it to be 75 seconds.”

Dr. Mark says the number continued to dip as the years went on.

“And then in the last five, six years, we found it to average about 47 seconds—and others have replicated this result within a few seconds. So it seems to be quite robust,” she says.

And this trend of dwindling attention spans is affecting how we consume content. And I'm not just talking about social media videos — even television and film shots are getting more brief, according to Dr. Mark.

“They started out much longer. They now average about four seconds a shot length,” she says. “If you watch MTV music videos, they're much shorter. They're only a couple of seconds. So we've become accustomed to seeing very fast shot lengths when we look at TV and film.”

Dr. Mark explains during the interview that it‘s a chicken vs. egg situation — she’s unsure which came first or what's influencing the other.

However, the fact remains that we‘re becoming more accustomed to shorter bursts of content, and it’s bleeding into the kind of content we consume and what's being created.

Studies found that most consumers will only watch an entire video if it's less than 60 seconds long . Then you have apps like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels that push short-form videos to users in an infinite scroll format.

Furthermore, our 2024 Marketing Trends Report found that almost a third of marketing professionals say their company will leverage short-form video content in 2024, and 53% said they'll boost their investment in the content type this year.

This makes sense since most marketers in our survey say short-form video content yielded them the highest ROI last year.

In case you're curious, here are a couple more reasons why many of us love short-form videos.

1. They are cost-effective and easier to create than long-form videos.

With long-form videos, marketers and creators must work extra hard to keep their audience engaged. That means strengthening the content with dynamic shots, mood-setting music, and a long but compelling script.

All that takes more time, effort, and (most importantly) money.

Short-form videos are more to the point and often require fewer frills to be effective.

For example, language learning platform Duo Lingo's TikTok account has over 10.8 million followers and is one of the most well-known accounts on the app due to its short, funny, and slightly unhinged videos.

Its most popular video has 57.7 million views and is super simple in terms of execution.

It shows a plushy of the Duo Lingo owl getting tossed down the stairs at the company's office, sitting outside on a rainy day, and getting soaked in a shower.

The caption of the video is “When you ignore my notifications.”

The video was clearly shot on someone's smartphone without fancy angles or lighting. The music is from a viral song already available via its sound archives. So simple, so cheap, yet so effective.

@duolingo sad g(owl) hours #duoplushie #duolingo #languagelearning #emo ♬ Rio romeo - .𝖒𝖊𝖓'🎧★

2. They can provide valuable information in a short amount of time.

According to a recent Adobe Survey , 2 in 5 Americans use TikTok as a search engine, and nearly 1 in 10 Gen Zers are more likely to rely on TikTok than Google as a search engine.

I even find myself taking to TikTok to look up recipes or figure out how to style a denim maxi-skirt (the trick is to experiment with different layers and silhouettes).

Between work, family, hobbies, and rest — time is precious, and short-form videos allow us to absorb the information we need in under a minute. Who doesn't love that?

3. You can watch them almost anytime, anywhere.

Bored on the train downtown? Scroll through TikTok. Need to kill some time in between classes or appointments? Pull up YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels on your phone.

Want to use your 5-minute break between meetings to figure out why everyone is talking about the latest JLo documentary? Let's circle back to TikTok.

Short-form videos are easy to watch almost anywhere and anytime from our smartphones.

Not only is this convenient for consumers, but it also helps marketers because it means we can repurpose our content on various platforms knowing someone will see it from somewhere.

There are different reasons to love short-form videos.

Some reasons are a little more concerning than others (seriously, why are our attention spans so short?), but no matter the reason, the fact remains the same —short forms aren't going away anytime soon.

Don't forget to share this post!

6 Short-Form Video Trends Marketers Should Watch in 2024 [New Data]

How to Write a Video Script [Template + Video]

The Hustle's YouTube Team Tells Us Their Favorite Short-Form Videos of 2023

22 Video Marketing & Advertising Campaigns You'll Actually Enjoy Watching

21 Royalty-Free Music Sites to Help You Make the Perfect Video Soundtrack

8 Holiday Gifts for the Content Creator in Your Life

How to Use Wistia: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Make a Video on iPhone (Expert Tips)

Product Videos: 10 of the Best Promotional Product Videos Ever

Explainer Videos: 10 Examples for Marketers

HubSpot uses the information you provide to us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. HubSpot will share the information you provide to us with the following partners, who will use your information for similar purposes: Litmus, Rock Content, Search Engine Journal. You can unsubscribe from communications from HubSpot at any time. For more information, check out HubSpot's Privacy Policy . To unsubscribe from Litmus's communications, see Litmus's Privacy Policy . To unsubscribe from Rock Content's communications, see Rock Content's Privacy Policy . To unsubscribe from Search Engine Journal's communications, see Search Engine Journal's Privacy Policy .

Data from over 1,400 marketers across the globe.

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

KPMG Personalization

IRS issues FAQs related to tax treatment of work-life referral services provided to employees

Employer-funded fringe benefit that provides work-life referral services

IRS issues FAQs

Home ›
Insights ›

The IRS today issued “frequently asked questions” (FAQs) in Fact Sheet 2024-13 related to the tax treatment of work-life referral services provided to employees under an employer’s work-life referral program (WLR program) and provide that generally such programs are excluded from employee income and employment tax withholding as a de minimis fringe benefit.

As described in the related IRS release— IR-2024-110 (April 16, 2024)—a WLR program is an employer-funded fringe benefit that provides work-life referral services (i.e., informational and referral consultations that assist employees with identifying, contacting, and negotiating with life-management resources for solutions to personal, work, or family challenges) to eligible employees. A WLR program may be offered under an Employee Assistance Program. Common WLR services include:

Identifying appropriate education, care, and medical service providers,
Choosing a child or dependent care program
Navigating eligibility for government benefits, including Veterans Administration benefits
Evaluating and using paid leave programs offered through employer or a state or locality
Locating home services professionals who specialize in adapting a home for a family member with special care needs
Navigating the medical system, including private insurance and public programs, and utilizing available medical travel benefits
Connecting the employee with local retirement and financial planning professionals

These programs are used infrequently by employees, even if offered to a large population of employees. These programs are usually operated by a third party to provide anonymity to employees related to sensitive topics and employers do not need to establish systems to handle protected information.

The FAQs clarify that under certain circumstances, the value of work-life referral services provided to employees through a work-life referral program can be excluded from income and employment taxes as a de minimis fringe benefits.

The KPMG name and logo are trademarks used under license by the independent member firms of the KPMG global organization. KPMG International Limited is a private English company limited by guarantee and does not provide services to clients. No member firm has any authority to obligate or bind KPMG International or any other member firm vis-à-vis third parties, nor does KPMG International have any such authority to obligate or bind any member firm. The information contained herein is of a general nature and is not intended to address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Although we endeavor to provide accurate and timely information, there can be no guarantee that such information is accurate as of the date it is received or that it will continue to be accurate in the future. No one should act on such information without appropriate professional advice after a thorough examination of the particular situation. For more information, contact KPMG's Federal Tax Legislative and Regulatory Services Group at: + 1 202 533 3712, 1801 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006.

Rishi Sunak pledges to remove benefits for people not taking jobs after 12 months

The prime minister announces a raft of reforms to the welfare system as he insists it "must change". But Labour lays the blame at the government's handling of the NHS, leaving people "locked out" of work.

Political reporter @NifS

Friday 19 April 2024 16:55, UK

People who are fit to work but do not accept job offers will have their benefits taken away after 12 months, the prime minister has pledged.

Outlining his plans to reform the welfare system if the Conservatives win the next general election, Rishi Sunak said "unemployment support should be a safety net, never a choice" as he promised to "make sure that hard work is always rewarded".

Politics live: 'Moral mission' to end 'sicknote culture', says Sunak

Mr Sunak said his government would be "more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life" by introducing a raft of measures in the next parliament. They include:

• Removing benefits after 12 months for those deemed fit for work but who do not comply with conditions set by their work coach - such as accepting a job offer

• Tightening the work capability assessment so those with less severe conditions will be expected to seek employment

• A review of the fit note system to focus on what someone can do, to be carried out by independent assessors rather than GPs

More on Benefits

Rishi Sunak pledges to keep child benefit cap if Tories win next election

Rishi Sunak wants to reform sick notes. Pic: PA

Rishi Sunak to demand end to 'sick note culture' and shift focus to 'what people can do'

File photo dated 09/04/18 of coins and Scottish bank notes. Employed Scots have been urged to check if they are eligible for benefits. As 2024 begins, Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said those in work are able to claim some parts of social security administered by the Scottish Government. Issue date: Monday January 8, 2024.

Workers in Scotland urged to check if they are eligible for benefits

There will need to be more detail before these plans come to fruition

Political correspondent

Rishi Sunak today announced he wanted to tackle what he calls "sick note culture" which he says is costing the taxpayer £69bn and rising.

In effect, he said today that if his party wins a general election - and he is still the prime minister - he plans to strip GPs of their power to sign of people off work.

Instead, unspecified "specialist work and health professionals" would be given the job of issuing sick notes in England to combat what he called a "worrying" number of 2.8 million younger potential who were out of work as of this year.

General election posturing aside, is the prime minister's diagnosis of the problem the right one?

From OBR figures, the number of sick notes has stayed relatively stagnant over the past four years – essentially flat with the exception of lockdowns – and it's difficult to determine why sick notes are issued, for mental health or otherwise.

Where increases do arise are on the levels of worklessness generally. "Economic inactivity" is now higher than in the pandemic and the biggest driver behind this seemed to be long-term ill health – people out of work for more than three years.

The director of the Institute for Employment Studies, Tony Wilson, says these figures suggest that the problem is not higher flows of people out of work, but rather lower flows into work. He says sick notes are important but not the whole picture as the priority should be to help those already out of work.

One of the rationales behind the government's announcement today was that Britain simply "can't afford" the current levels of sickness benefit and it was "not fair on taxpayers".

Rishi Sunak made a point of stating that those who are anxious or depressed should be expected to work saying that while "“we should see it as a sign of progress that people can talk openly about mental health conditions in a way that only a few years ago would've been unthinkable" - he was also concerned that 53% of people inactive due to long term sickness reported they had depression, bad nerves or anxiety.

But Louise Murphy from the Resolution Foundation says most PIP claims among young people do relate to "psychiatric disorders" but that these tend to be long-term conditions such as ADHD and autism rather than anxiety and depression.

Critics have also pointed out something missing from this morning's speech is NHS mental health capacity, after NHS bosses warned "overwhelmed" services had been unable to cope with a big post-COVID increase in people needing help.

As these plans are promised for the next parliament and a consultation will be the next steps, it is likely there will be more detail to come in the coming months from the government on how these plans can be legislated.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows 9.4 million people aged between 16 and 64 were "economically inactive", with over 2.8 million citing long-term sickness as the reason.

Mr Sunak said 850,000 of them had been signed off since the COVID pandemic and half of those on long-term sickness said they had depression, with the biggest growth area being young people.

He also claimed the total being spent on benefits for people of working age with a disability or health condition had increased by almost two-thirds since the pandemic to £69bn - more than the entire budget for schools or policing.

"I will never dismiss or downplay the illnesses people have," said the prime minister. "Anyone who has suffered mental ill health or had family and friends who have know these conditions are real and they matter.

"But just as it would be wrong to dismiss this growing trend, so it would be wrong to merely sit back and accept it because it's too hard, too controversial, or for fear of causing offence."

The prime minister said he knew critics would accuse him of "lacking compassion", but he insisted "the exact opposite is true", adding: "There is nothing compassionate about leaving a generation of young people to sit in the dark before a flickering screen, watching as their dreams slip further from reach every passing day.

"And there is nothing fair about expecting taxpayers to support those who could work but choose not to.

"It doesn't have to be like this. We can change. We must change."

Be the first to get Breaking News

Install the Sky News app for free

But Labour said the "root cause of economic activity" was down to the Tories' failure on the health service, with record NHS waiting lists hitting people's ability to get back in the workplace.

Acting shadow work and pensions secretary Alison McGovern said: "After 14 years of Tory misery, Rishi Sunak has set out his failed government's appalling record for Britain: a record number of people locked out of work due to long-term sickness and an unsustainable spiralling benefits bill.

"Rather than a proper plan to get Britain working, all we heard today were sweeping questions and reheated proposals without any concrete answers."

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called it "a desperate speech from a prime minister mired in sleaze and scandal", adding: "Rishi Sunak is attempting to blame the British people for his own government's failures on the economy and the NHS and it simply won't wash."

Listen to Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidson as they unravel the spin in a new weekly podcast from Sky News

Meanwhile, disability charity Scope said the measures were a "full-on assault on disabled people", adding they were "dangerous and risk leaving disabled people destitute".

James Taylor, director of strategy at the charity, said calls were already "pouring in" to their helpline with people concerned about the impact on them, adding: "Sanctions and ending claims will only heap more misery on people at the sharp end of our cost of living crisis."