The COVID-19 crisis has changed the way employees work. Where feasible, many transitioned to a work from home environment.

While there are many people who do work from home, when employed by a company, working from home was not common in the general work force until now. Some companies began a relaxed work environment for several reasons and if jobs were able to be done from home, often the employee would do so once or twice a week. With the extreme change in how COVID-19 affected the country and the world, where it shut down businesses and changed how people could interact, working from home became a reality for many people.

With the 2020 pandemic there are three main reasons people work from home:

1. Owns their own business
2. Works for a company that allows remote work
3. Forced to work from home due to COVID-19

Is this bad? No, not really because working from home has many benefits. Is it for everyone? No, not all the time, but for those that are able to work from home, let’s look at some of the benefits. Keep in mind you must be disciplined since it is very easy to say, “I’ll do that later.”

The benefits of working from home:

• You can define your own schedule. If you own your own business or work for a business that is generally home-based, then your have a lot of flexibility.
• Jobs that use a computer (accountant, marketing, system analyst, web designer, etc. are often jobs done at home, but you can also have a hands-on job that is creative that isn’t computer based.
• You can either work from home or work wherever there is Internet, meaning you can even work from a coffee shop or even while on vacation.
• Your environment is more casual, and you can customize it to be comfortable. There is less stress and you can often have a better work-life balance. You can also have a healthier lifestyle not being around environmental toxins and include more healthy activities such as yoga or meditation during the day should you want to.
• You can wear more relaxed clothes. Often feeling more relaxed allows for more work to be done because you are comfortable.
• Making calls can be easier with less distractions and often, be more enjoyable.
• You can be more productive as well since you will not have office distractions or people stopping to “chat.” But you must be disciplined because on the flip side, you also can “slack off” and not accomplish your required tasks.
• The commute time is definitely better. It can be looked at as environmentally friendly also so there is less air pollution from the vehicles.
• You will save money since you will not have to pay for gas, parking, lunch or snacks from vendors or stores.

The important take-away is to make sure you treat your work-from-home job as seriously as you would a job in a company setting. While more relaxed, discipline is the key to treat the job seriously and not become too relaxed where you do not meet the requirements of the company or yourself. Keep your work environment as “work oriented” as possible, limit distractions and you will be very successful.

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