Although remote work offers some interesting advantages, it does have some disadvantages that are often … (+)
Imagine a life where you can take back control of your time, work hard but stress-free in your own space. At home, you can meditate or exercise without having to travel, enjoy good coffee whenever you want, and have healthy lunches and snacks at your fingertips. No more uncomfortable office temperatures or lack of lighting.
The stress of an open corporate office disappears, you no longer wake up before dawn to be stuck in traffic for hours, and you no longer spend your evenings stuck in the same traffic jam.
Expensive, unsatisfying lunches and faux politeness at the office are now a thing of the past. Instead, you find yourself healthier and happier, with more time to spend with your spouse and children. While this scenario sounds very appealing to some, others who live the same reality might disagree.
The shift to remote working, welcomed with enthusiasm at the start of the pandemic, has profoundly transformed the way people perceive work. While remote working offers many advantages, it also hides disadvantages that can affect people’s well-being and productivity.
1. Blurring the lines between work and private life
Remote work offers incredible flexibility, allowing individuals to set their own hours and work in any environment. This flexibility is especially beneficial for parents, allowing them to organize their work around family needs. However, this same flexibility can blur the lines between work and home life, making it difficult to maintain a clear separation between work and personal life.
For example, without defined work hours, employees may find themselves working longer hours than expected. Distractions at home can interrupt work, turning a six-hour task into a twelve-hour ordeal. Over time, this lack of clear boundaries can lead to decreased productivity and burnout.
A 2022 study looked at the long-term effects of working from home during different phases of the pandemic and identified three main challenges people faced in maintaining boundaries within their households:
- Place and time. It was difficult to separate work hours from personal time and work spaces from living spaces.
- Care and housework. The overlap between work responsibilities and domestic tasks, including care, has proven difficult.
- Emotional, social, spiritual and aesthetic work. Working from home intertwines emotional, social, spiritual, and aesthetic labor with home life, blurring boundaries and increasing stress. Imagine a scenario where you’re halfway ready for a Zoom call, your toddler is demanding lunch, a friend is crashing your house for the weekend, and your to-do and self-care lists are hanging over your head like a guillotine. This is what a bad day working from home can look like.
Women, in particular, reported higher levels of integration between professional work and domestic responsibilities, such as care and housework.
One mother said: “I work on my laptop, either on the couch or at the dining table. (…) My husband uses our home office. When the kindergartens closed in the spring and the children were at home, I worked in the sauna, because it was the quietest place in the house.”
2. Social isolation and loneliness
“Maybe empathy decreases a little when people don’t meet each other and are just distant faces on the screen. You can’t see each other’s reactions and you’ve become more ‘business oriented’,” said another participant.
Working remotely can be a lonely experience, lacking the social interactions that come with an office environment. Office environments provide opportunities for informal conversations, team-building activities, and after-work socializing, which are essential for building a sense of community and belonging. For people who live alone or are introverted, the isolation of remote work can be particularly challenging in the long term.
“Encouragement from colleagues has decreased, as I find myself working a lot in my own bubble. At the office, I would go around saying hello and making people smile. I also spontaneously congratulated others. When working remotely, spontaneous expression of emotions is clearly more difficult, but not completely forgotten,” said one participant.
A survey conducted in 2023 by Buffer asked participants about their remote work experiences. While over 90% of respondents expressed a positive attitude toward remote work in terms of flexibility and autonomy, 23% indicated that it was a lonely experience. A February 2023 study published in Personality and individual differences Studies also highlight the lack of social environment and the feeling of loneliness felt by remote workers.
Another study found that employees who experienced high levels of loneliness due to their work reported higher levels of emotional exhaustion, poorer work-life balance, minor counterproductive behaviors at work, depression, and insomnia. Loneliness can exacerbate feelings of isolation and stress, leading to adverse consequences.
3. Sleep disorders
The flexibility of remote work can disrupt sleep patterns. Employees may work late into the night to meet deadlines or handle unplanned tasks, leading to irregular sleep schedules. As we now know, poor sleep can have serious consequences for physical and mental health, including impaired cognitive function, weakened immune systems, and increased risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure.
In one study, researchers were surprised to find that remote healthcare workers were more likely to develop insomnia than those providing in-person care during the pandemic, with women and older workers at higher risk.
This is likely due to the added pressures of childcare and supervising online schooling while working from home, which has contributed to worsening sleep among health workers with children. In addition, changes in work schedules, reduced sun exposure, and prolonged psychological stress have been identified as potential factors disrupting sleep.
“This is why everyone walks around in a state of fatigue. Our circadian system is deregulated, we don’t get enough light during the day, not to mention all the psychological stressors,” the researchers explain.
While the appeal of remote work lies in its promise of flexibility and autonomy, it’s essential to recognize and address the hidden challenges that can undermine these benefits. Jumping into remote work without mental and logistical preparation can have a direct impact on your physical and emotional well-being.
Working from home doesn’t let you sleep? Take the Insomnia Severity Index to find out if you need professional help.