Remote working – How to make it a success

Working remotely has become more and more of a trend in recent years, with companies looking to cut their overheads and the development of modern technology, a meeting can be held via video call with people from all round the world in one virtual room and documents can be held digitally for all of the team to access.

But is working remotely good for your career? Is it the best way to start in a new company? How do you get the best results from working at home? All of these questions are important to answer when you are thinking about how to further your career and make a success of it.

I have worked from home for a number of years now in various different countries and working over many different sectors. After having so many different careers over the years I can speak from experience and say that working from home can be challenging but also really beneficial and rewarding at the same time. The hardest part of working from home is self motivation, you aren’t accountable to anyone on a minute by minute basis and your boss doesn’t see you walk through the door or how many breaks you might take in the day.

When I went into the office my boss could see everything that I was doing during the day as well as seeing my results. I would sometimes be sat at my desk till 9pm only because my boss was and I wanted to impress him with my commitment to my job, and perhaps I was a little competitive and just wanted to finally out sit him one day.

But times have changed and mindsets of companies are changing too. It is no longer just about what exact hours you are putting into your job, but what you are achieving with the results that are expected by your employer in your chosen career. If you can do your work and get the right amount of results in half the time of someone else that is fine, you are clearly working at a much faster capacity than someone else (and maybe you should be seeking for more work at a higher level) and if you aren’t as fast, that is also fine too as the doors to the office aren’t shutting at 6pm so you wont get kicked out and can carry working at your leisure.

For me the best part of remote working is the flexibility to work at different hours to the normal 9 to 5, which I didn’t have in my office based careers. If something comes up during the day, you know you can make up the time in the evening and you don’t need to worry about transporting laptops and work home to do so.

The commute is also pretty good, the short steps from the bedroom to the computer is great for time saving, so a few extra minutes in bed really aren’t so much of a problem and also much cheaper than a season ticket on the train or horrific parking charges. Another huge perk is the coffee is really good and cheap, plus you get to drink it out of a mug and not a paper cup, which is a huge win in my eyes.

I think the key to being able to work well from home is being accountable to yourself and if you are working as part of a team then you log in so that you are visible on the team chat. Try to keep your working hours normal if you can so that you can ensure that you get the right balance of rest as well and don’t just end up working all the time.

There are so many new opportunities to embrace the work from home culture, but if I was starting my career again I would want to also be back in an office. Learning from others is important for self and career development and to be able to see people handle themselves and their work first hand is so important. I feel like I learnt so much from my peers and was able to learn how to build good relationships with my colleagues and clients, which is definitely not so easy to do remotely.

Using Careersaas to find remote work will help you see the opportunities available to you, don’t forget you can select different locations and use custom built AI to search focusing on your industry preferences.