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Working from home is becoming more and more common with about 7% of employees in the USA currently doing so a few times a month. This has increased by over 150% since the mid 90’s and is set to grow exponentially over the next decade.
Now whilst we all might be thinking this is going to be awesome, working from home definitely has some significant disadvantages that I wish I knew before I worked remotely a few days per week.
Which of these are the most important? How can you counter these disadvantages? Keep reading to find out more
(Just a heads up a lot of people reading my blog are in the process of designing their own home office. If you want to save some of the painstaking time I did in designing my office, you can find my recommended products here)
Lack of communication
Easily one of the biggest problems associated with working from home is just a lack of communication. This works on all fronts whether it be you not communicating enough to your employer about any potential issues you might have or feeling as though you are not understanding what your employer wants of you.
Poor communication is a problem in the best of scenarios so working from home will definitely exacerbate this issue.
“If the employer and the client are not comfortable conversing in the same spoken language, it is almost guaranteed that the project will cost more money and be delayed”
Source: weforum
How to solve this
The good news is poor communication, like everything else, can be solved. Before you start to communicate try to figure out:
- What action or response you want the person you are communicating with to take
- What the best method of communicating to that person will be ( e-mail, phone, skype)
- Your tone of voice, does the person you are speaking with like data? Or do they need to be told news gently
Tools I would recommend
The best tool for communicating remotely bar none is Skype. Whilst the free version is okay, in my opinion for the best signal possible, invest in the paid version to which you can find here.
Disruption of work life balance
So part of the reason a lot of us decide to work from home is that we feel as though we will be getting some of our time back.
Instead of having to commute to work we can use the hour to be with our family instead gaining back some of the precious time we have with them.
It pains me to say this but that is a bit of a fairy tale.
As you work from home you might find yourself working a lot more than you do normally, wanting to prove to your employer that you are not skiving on the job… the last thing you will want is the perk taken away from you.
As such you might find yourself working late into the night.
How to solve this
This is a bit of a tricky one but in my experience the best way to solve this is by asking exactly what is required of you from your employer before you work remotely. Having clear expectations will definitely help you balance your workload with your personal life.
On top of this if you have the ability to manage your weeks free from managerial oversight and working from home is important to you I would balance out your week so the days you do work from home are the days that you can focus on busy work.
Tools I would recommend
There is nothing better than using a calendar to break up your day and finish bang on 5pm. Whilst using something like google calendar should be fine, I find that when you write things down you tend to stick to them more. Now if you are more manual and you want to use a calendar in person I would recommend this one.
Technology issues
So despite living in the 21st century technology and poor connectivity can still be an issue for the majority of us.
There is nothing worse than working from home only for your wifi to cut out or your phone to die. Working from home presents it’s own challenges when it comes to this,The last thing you want is management feeling as though your home is not set up correctly to working remotely.
How to solve this
Three are a few quick things you can do to solve this. If you are working for someone else you can claim back a percentage of your expenses from your employer. So if you have trouble with wifi consider things like a wifi booster. When working from home if you have a big meeting coming up, try to limit the number of devices that are connecting to your internet at any given time.
Tools I would recommend
Two tools I would recommend everyone to have would have to be a wifi booster and a portable charger. Both I use on a daily basis. You can find a full link on my resource page here however my recommendations would have to be the MyCharge and the TP Link WiFi Booster
Less family time
So we touched upon this earlier on but working from home will definitely give you less family time then you might have anticipated originally..
If your kids are at school or your partner is at work you will still find that the weekend is still going to be the time you get the most amount of socialising with them.
How to solve this
It’s worth saying every family is different. So you will have to do what is best for your family, that being said one quick win you could do to spend more time with your family is consciously make the decision to spend 30 minutes hanging out with the family every few hours on your work day.
A lot of families don’t sit together to eat dinner so this could be another great option to start getting the quality facetime you need.
Tools I would recommend
Okay so believe it or not board games are still a great way of connecting with your family. My personal recommendation would be Monopoly but hey go with whatever it is you are into!
Loneliness
This is another huge one that people are actively struggling with. There is a loneliness epidemic across the world with almost 22% of feeling lonely. Add to this that 28% of the current US population lives alone it’s easy to see how working from home can easily exacerbate this.
Let’s face it we all have those colleagues at work we would rather avoid, that being said human beings are social creatures and we need human interaction to feel ourselves.
How to solve this
So I’ve written an entire post about how to socialise when working remotely that you can see here but a few of they key tips from the list include:
- Going to networking events
- Getting out to exercise
- Working from a coffee shop once per week
- Setting up conference calls with your work colleagues
Tools I would recommend
Any video conference tool would work when trying to connect with people but my preference would have to be skype.
A smaller sense of accomplishment
So this is one that I didn’t foresee when I first started by working from home. One of the things you will definitely miss from an office environment is the sense of accomplishment and recognition you will receive.
I mean let’s face it, if you do an amazing job ( which you obviously always do) there is nothing better than getting recognition in front of your peers seeing their reactions face to face. The same can’t be said for receiving this over the internet which will definitely lead to you feeling a lack of accomplishment for the great work you have just done.
How to solve this
Journaling would be a great way to do this, buy celebrating the small wins for yourself you will recognise yourself for a job well done and not have to worry about recognition from others. On top of this is this is an organisation wide issue you might want to look into employee recognition software
Tools I would recommend
So if you work in a HR team I would definitely recommend having a look at Reward Gateway which has solutions specifically designed for remote working and recognise your employees. For everyone else, I journal pretty much out of the same diary I recommended earlier which again you can find here.
Social pressure
Social pressure is a funny one. You might not think this is something you have to consider but trust me when I say you will start getting a lot of people questioning YouTube to see if you actually have a job.
The reality of the matter is that whilst most people have the option of flexible working very few of them have the ability to work from home on a daily basis so you will definitely find yourself in scenarios where people envy your position and think you do nothing.
How to solve this
Again, another difficult one to solve as you can’t really change people own pre-conceived notions about remote working. Try to be accommodating to people. It’s usually not personal, more so the person is not happy about their own work position so try to address that and start the conversation about what an ideal work life looks for them.
Tools I would recommend
A solid recommendation for dealing with this would be how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie which can help in dealing with social situations like these.
Less progress in your career
So whilst people who work remotely typically own their own businesses and are more likely to be earning a six figure salary there are still the misconceptions some managers have.
As such this can greatly impact your career. I mean it super hard to be visible when working from home, so it’s much more likely your manager will promote someone who they can physically see in the office working late day in day out.
How to solve this
A few tricks that could work would be when sending off summaries of the day or important e=mails to potentially do them in the evening, outside of your working hours showing management that you are going above and beyond. Set regular meetings with management every week and when presenting to them show the direct link you’ve had on an organisation.
Tools I would recommend
How to Talk to anyone is a great book by Leil Lowndes that has some great pointers on communicating with anyone.
Perceived lack of care from management
Again similar to the above point one of the major problems you will have is a perceived lack of care from management. This can have a huge impact on your personal development with management not giving you the tasks and letting you learn the skills that will push forward your career.
How to solve this
Again similar to the point above, setting regular meetings with management and showing that you are more than capable with direct references to your past work should help solve this. You might also want to consider taking on other tasks if you have the availability.
Tools I would recommend
Both how to talk to anyone and how to win friends and influence are great books that I used to help me just become more social and better at communicating.
Jealousy amongst colleagues
So similar to having to deal with people’s perceptions of you in social situations you also have to deal with jealousy from time to time if your colleagues don’t have the luxury of working from home as frequently as you.
As much as we try to act like we are all professional in workplace situations we can’t help being human. As such if something bothers us, it’s going to come out. This can lead to people speaking about you behind your back and once that starts it’s easy for this to get picked up by management spreading like a bad smell in your office.
How to solve this
If you do feel yourself in a situation where you think your colleagues might be frustrated that you are working from home try to share your calendar with them. We did this in one of my previous roles and everyone could easily see how busy each other was. This pretty much stopped any conversations in the bud and led to a much happier workplace.
Tools I would recommend
None aside from the books I mentioned earlier on in this post.
Lack of office space
This is a huge problem I faced when I first started working remotely. I would literally find myself hopping from room to room to fund a place where I could just focus up and get my work done.
So trust me when I say having an office space is essential to get anything done. It will help you focus, help manage your time and give you a sense of accomplishment
How to solve this
So this blog is dedicated to creating home offices and working from home so I have loads of posts about how to set up a home office. But the general idea is
- Figure out how much room you have to work with
- Decide on a theme
- Decide what your office will mainly be used for
- Figure out your three must have items
- Buy your items and start designing
I’ve also wrote quite a few blogs posts talking about the questions you should ask before buildings home office as well as where the best room to put your home office will be
Tools I would recommend
So there are a lot of things I could recommend for a home office but the good news is that I’ve done a lot of the hard work finding the best products out there. (meaning I’ve spend a lot of money on items on useless items to ensure you are getting the best ones)
As always you can find them on my resource page.
Security concerns
Another huge problem employers have for their employees working remotely is managing security. A lot of us will be sharing documents and viewing them at home and so we need to make sure all our hardware is up to scratch with any IT regulations and policies.
And It’s not only IT stuff you have to be aware of, If you care about sensitive documents outside of work or use the same phone for work and personal use these could also have huge security impacts for your firm.
How to solve this
So if you’re anything like me your knowledge on IT stuff is probably quite limited.
The best thing you can do in this situation is to be proactive and get into contact with your HR and IT team asking about their policy around security and work devices. You would much rather be safe than sorry in situations like this so being proactive will definitely go a long way
If the policy is vague you might want to speak with them about password managers like last pass or dashlane. Talk to them about encrypting devices that require single-sign ons and of course keeping your phone and laptop locked when you are away from them.
Tools I would recommend
So definitely something that I would consider investing in ( if your security policy allows for it would be a VPN service which hides your IP address and makes it harder for [people to see exactly where you are searching. You might also want to invest in anti-virus software on your personal devices too to keep things up to scratch.
Loss of productivity
So most of you who work remotely won’t have to worry about this with most people who work remotely actually working 16.8 days more then there remote working policy.
That being said there will always be outliers who just simply can’t seem to focus when they are at home. Let’s face it if you are unproductive or even more unproductive at home then you are at work this can lead to you being on shaky ground when it comes time for your yearly review.
How to solve this
In my opinion there are a few key things you can do to stay focused throughout the day which include:
- Getting dressed in the morning to stay focused
- Use the pomodoro technique to get through hefty tasks that require a lot of time
- Try and do the toughest tasks on your to do list first
- Journal how you feel to monitor when you feel the laziest
Also if your interested in reading more about how to be more productive when working remotely, check out this blog post I wrote about it here.
Tools I would recommend
So for me listening to binaural beats definitely helps me stay focused and listening to them through noise cancelling or wireless headphones always does the trick. I would have to recommend the Sony WHX1000MX3
“remote employees work 16.8 days more per year then their office based counterparts”
Source: airtasker
Potential legal issues
So this is likely to affect you if you are self employed and you work from home.
Have you taken into consideration the legal ramifications of working from home? I mean if you are paying a mortgage you might find that you might need a business mortgage for the work you are doing. If you have your employees over and they hurt themselves in your house are you covered by insurance?
Therese are all super important questions to consider when working from home
How to solve this
Before you even start working remotely make a list of all the things that could potentially go wrong working remotely. Murphy’s law dictates that anything that can go wrong will go wrong,so it’s always good to be proactive and get ahead of any problems. Once you’ve uncovered all these problems speak to a legal council about this just to calm any potential worries you might have.
Tools I would recommend
One of the other considerations you might have to make is about your own business bank account. I personally have a business bank account with Barclays which is free for one year for new sign ups and has a relatively lonely month’s ongoing fee with a limit of over $200,000. You can sign up here.
Loss of structure
Another huge problem with working remotely is just the complete and utter lack of structure for your day. Whilst getting out of bed a minute before you start work will definitely feel fresh and novel when you first start it does not take long for it to get stale very quickly.
With lack of structure often comes other problems like lack of productivity and you might find yourself getting more anxious (as I did) on the days you work remotely.
How to solve this
What helped me is just structuring my day out a day or even week in advance. Whilst there is definitely something fun about not knowing what is happening tomorrow when working remotely the opposite is true so you need to plan out at least 3 tasks you will need to complete every day in order to have something to work towards.
Tools I would recommend
Using something as simple as google calendar can be a great place to start blocking out your day but if you are anything like me use the journal I recommended earlier to keep track of your tasks and monitor exactly how much work you do. A few weeks in you should start to feel better with more structure and you can quantify and amend as you go along if it is all written down in a journal.
Lack of accountability
Another major disadvantage ( in your employers eyes at least) is the lack of accountability on your part. I mean if we put ourselves in their shoes for a second imagine how difficult it must be to manage their employees when they are based all over the country.
On top of that it’s super easy for management to forget about you, you might dial into an important meeting but by not physically being present it’s very easy for you to fall by the waysside.
The long term problems this could lead to you getting frustrated with your manager for not taking the time with you.
How to solve this
So the way I solved this was with a few methods First, if possible always have your camera on when in virtual meetings. It’s a lot harder for people to ignore you if they can see you. Secondly I would recommend dropping a message to your boss every morning with what you intended to get done and then a recap on the end of the day explaining what you’ve got done.
It might sound super tedious, but it will keep you in the forefront of their eyes.
Tools I would recommend
Easily the best tool I would recommend for instant chat and communication would have to be slack which has boomed the past few years. It’s a great tool that allows you to stay with multiple people from different workplaces. You can check it out here.
“it becomes hard to monitor how they work, or their deliverables. The degree of procrastination is something that can spiral out of control. Depending on the type of role you hire for; it is important to know how you are going to monitor their status”
Source:reddit
Lack of reliability
Another ( perceived) disadvantage your employer might have about remote working is the lack of reliability on your part. Can they trust you to work overtime? Sometimes management has an idea that remote workers are only using remote roles as a stepping stone to greater things so would much rather higher someone who would be present.
How to solve this
The reality of the matter is that if your employer does not trust you enough to be responsible when working remotely or that you are using the role as a stepping stone you might want to look for another place to work. There are tons of roles out there with great remote working opportunities and you shouldn’t settle for a company that requires you to be in the office.
One less dramatic approach would be to prove to management that you are responsible. How? Well simply put when you first start your role don’t work remotely in the first instance. Instead take a few weeks or months to get good at your current role and then take things from there.
Tools I would recommend
Sites like Reed and Indeed are great places to look for new roles.
Loss of feeling part of a culture
I think we all have worked at companies where we didn’t feel like a part of the culture. For me it was my first role out of University and man did it suck.
Not feeling like a part of the culture can definitely make you feel like you’re working a daily grind pretty much more than anything I know.. This can only be super exacerbated when working remotely as you don’t physically have contact with anyone.
How to solve this
Simply put you have to be proactive. Try to get to know your colleagues a little bit better. Make small talk at the start of your meetings and eventually work your way up to having virtual lunches with them.
It’s all about taking small steps to start off with, you might find you have more in common with the company culture than you originally thought
Tools I would recommend
So I mentioned this earlier but Reward Gateway has a great employee engagement platform, so if you work In HR it can be a great place to go to bring the physical culture of your workplace to the digital marketplace.
“When you only see teammates in chat or a weekly video call, it’s hard to develop the tight-knit camaraderie that makes for truly great teams”
Source: Reddit
Lack of focus and motivation
So most people won’t have to worry about this, however for anyone who has worked remotely either full time or for a sustained period of time day in day out, it’s super easy to feel run down, tired and as though the walls are closing in on you.
This can have a detrimental effect on your work with you feeling deflated at even approaching a prospect.
How to solve this
In my experience there are five things you need to do to solve this:
- Set up a routine every day and stick to it
- Take a break when you are feeling burned out
- Get dressed every morning to feel ready for the day
- Use the pomodoro technique to help drive your focus in short bursts
- Get out and move
Speaking of taking breaks,if you’re curious about how many you should take when working from home check out this post I wrote on the topic here.
Tools I would recommend
We talked about them earlier but wireless bluetooth headphones are great as a way of blocking out all the sound around you and listening to some focus music on YouTube. My recommendation would have to be the Sony WH1000XM3
Household noise
Another huge disadvantage from working from home, especially if you have a lot of calls and meetings is the background noise. There is nothing like this legendary BBC interview to know that household noise and distractions will often pry you from your work life balance:
How to solve this
You can solve household noise in a few ways. Firstly try to set up a home office or a workstation so you have a dedicated space to help reduce the noise. The next step I would try to invest in is some form of soundproofing,.g This can be as simple as a couple of egg boxes but you might want to invest in a more bespoke solution. Speaking of which.
Tools I would recommend
Soundproof padding is easily the best thing I would recommend for keeping the noise down. My favorite would have to be Foamilly from amazon which is fairly cheap and does the job!
Ergonomic issues
If you’re anything like me your posture probably sucks big time. MY spine pretty much used to look like a question mark at the best of times, add working from home on top of there and I would end the day with a sore back well before my time.
Working from home usually means sitting in a stiff chair for hours on end so not addressing this is going to have a huge impact on your health.
How to solve this
Simply put the best way to deal with poor posture would be by taking regular breaks. Every hour take a few mins away from your desk. It might also be worth going for a walk as well to get your body moving. Try to consciously keep your chest up and shoulders back whilst you walk. Now that being said there are also a bunch of great tools you can get for ergonomic support
Tools I would recommend
Stand by because there are a lot:
- Ergonomic keyboard – Great for stopping any RSI issues
- Ergonomic mouse – Again great for any RSI injuries or pain you might have
- Ergonomic chair – great for supporting you back and keeping you upright
- Ergonomic screens – linking up your screen to eye-level will definitely help your posture
- Back brace – feel free to wear this in your spare time when you’re about the house – it will keep you upright and prevent you from slouching until your body does it automatically by itself.
- Standing desk – great to keep you upright and exercising the whole day
- Standing desk converter – cheaper than a standing desk, simply pop it on top of your existing standing desk.
Lack of IT support
We touched upon this point earlier but lack of IT support is a real issue. Let’s say you forgot your work password or you can’t download a work app you need.
Getting through to IT departments is touch enough at the best of times, having to deal with them when you need them most is going to be a challenge.
How to solve this
The best thing you can do to solve this would be to be proactive. Try to speak to your IT department beforehand and ask them for a direct line as you will be working remotely. Try not to use this number for every incident but only for the issues you can’t solve by yourself.
Tools I would recommend
You can’t go wrong with a spare work laptop. My recommendation would be the Dell XPS 13 which you can find here.
Boredom
Boredom happens to us all whether we like it or not. Say what you will about modern technology but I distinctly remember being more board as a shield then I am now.
Most of the time boredom is just frustration at the time you have until your next task, if left unresolved it can have a huge impact on dealing with said task making you perform worse then you normally would.
How to solve this
The best recommendation I have for solving boredom is by simply starting a side hustle. You can’t get bored if you don’t have any spare time and setting up something like a blog or YouTube channel can not only help you kill boredom, but help advance your career further.
Tools I would recommend
For my money the best on the marketplace for starting a side income would have to be incomes schools project 24. It’s easy to follow and spells everything out from beginner to end. It’s what I even used to increase the amount of money I make every month. You can find it here.
Lack of answers
Another problem that falls under the communication piece is the amount of time you will have to wait for an answer. Usually when everyone is working from home you are unable to see what they are working on and you can’t just walk over to their house to help get an answer so you will often find yourself getting frustrated.
What’s even worse is if you are working on a big project, you don’t want to make a decision that could lead to the project tanking.
Getting answers ASAP is super important to the success of any role let alone on which requires to work from home.
How to solve this
The easiest way to solve this would be by changing up the method of communication, for example if you have sent your colleagues a slack message try calling them directly instead. It is also worth speaking to your manager or colleagues about keeping their calendar up to date so they know when they are in or out of the office so you are best placed to know when they are likely to get back to you.
Tools I would recommend
Use project management tools like Basecamp or Monday which allow you to manage and monitor tasks to give you an idea of when your team is at and when you can expect an answer.
“There is extra coordination cost and overhead when it comes to dealing with remote workers. And there are times you just want everybody in a big room together to hash things out. This is obviously harder with a distributed team.”
Source: Ycominator
Fear of missing out
FOMO is real. Even if you’re the biggest introvert in the world it’s nice to feel like you’re a part of something. Missing out on office events like birthdays or culture days can be paid especially when you are working remotely.
This can often lead to not gelling well with your colleagues or not feeling like you are a part of the team.
How to solve this
Try to set up your own meetings virtually if possible there are a lot of great party online tools that allow you to play games or host quizzes out there so by using something like this you are taking the initiative whilst still feeling like a part of the company.
Tools I would recommend
Skype premium has loads of games like chess that you can challenge your friends with. has loads of free games
Poor diet
More often than not, with the amount of time you will spend at home when working it’s only natural that you will be reaching for the fridge more often. I know when I first started working from home I gained an extra 2 inches on my waist and chocolate was the major culprit.
How to solve this
Try to remove all the bad food from your house. If it’s not in the house it’s less likely you’re going to eat it on a daily basis.
Tools I would recommend
Easily the best tool out there for tracking not only your calories but also your macro and micro-nutrients has to be my fitness pal. I use it everyday when I’m dieting to keep track of what I’m putting into my mouth and with its intuitive design it’s super easy to use as soon as you download it.
Lack of social life
The older we get, the more our social lives seem to dwindle. Work and family responsibilities usually mean we go out less and less whilst most out socialising is done at work.
If you take away the office environment this can definitely become a struggle with you sometimes finding a way to connect with people whilst based at home.
How to solve this
Once again I wrote a post about this before but the general idea is to just try and get out more. Make friends with people at networking events and try to spend at least a few hours a week socialising. As human beings we are human creatures and you can only go without social interactions for so long.
Tools I would recommend
None as this is more focused on you taking the initiative to get out there.
Lack of exercise
Paired up with a poor diet, lack of exercise is another hurdle we have to deal with when working remotely. I mean let’s face it, we’re often doing a lot less walking and you forget how much exercise you might actually get in your commute.
Pair this up with the bad diet and you’re on a one way street to obesity if you don’t fix up.
How to solve this
Definitely go out for a walk on your lunch break or even make it to the gym if you can. Filing that try to do some office exercise like you go to get your blood pumping. If you can afford it a gym membership might come in handy. I like to try and go to the gym first thing in the morning which typically sets up my day for focus.
Tools I would recommend
You can’t go wrong with a home workout and instead of spending money on costly weights consider investing in a band set which are super easy to use, take up less space and don’t break the bank. My favorite has to be Reno’s Exercise bands here.
General distraction
Similar to the amount of noise we discussed earlier, you also have to deal with a lot of other distractions when working from home.
Neighbours dog barking? Sirens going off? Partner snoring? Laugh if you want but these are all very real things that have happened to addressing them first and first most is going to be imperative if you get distracted easily.
How to solve this
The first thing I would suggest is for you to try to be more productive through all the distractions. Using things like the pomodoro technique can definitely help keep your brain focused for a while.
Baring this of course the best thing you can do once again is set up a home office/ workstation where you can sit down and focus on the business at hand. You will be shocked at the amount of work you can do when you have a dedicated room to do so.
Tools I would recommend
As discussed earlier, luckily for you I’ve made loads of mistakes in buying office gear that just didn’t work and have found the best items I feel as though every office needs. You can find them all here on my resource page.
Increased Bills
So whilst you might save a fair bit of money on your commute you might find that you are having to pay more for power and heat when working remotely.
This is because your office used to charge your phone and computer when at work before and doing this yourself day in day out can definitely add up.
How to solve this
The good news is that if you work for someone else you can potentially claim back your expenses or a proportion of them at least. Just try to work out how much of your time is spent working and how much of a bill that equates to and take things from there. It’s always worth speaking to your HR or finance team to see what expenses your organization allows for.
Tools I would recommend
Digit is a great app that allows you to track where your money is going month in month out and put away spare pocket money. Digit users on average save about $2200 per year using the app so it is definitely worth downloading.
Wrapping things up
If you are thinking of going your own way and figuring out how to work from home checkout my exhaustive list of 120 working from home business ideas here.
Finally a lot of people reading my blog want to know what products I recommend for a home office/remote working. You can find out my recommendations here and learn how I make money whilst working remotely on the side here.
The content on this on this site has been written by Fehed Nicass who has over a decades worth of experience in sales and has worked remotely for the past 2 years.
