My Remote Work Experience • Strategy Blog

I would like to share my experience of distance working. I have worked remotely in management consulting for over 2 years. Until that time, I also managed to work offline in the office in the same field, so I can compare offline and online work experience in the same industry.

First, how and why did I choose to telecommute or how did it happen? When I was looking for a new job in such a specific industry as consulting, traditionally, you have to go to big cities, financial centers of countries, usually there are offices of such companies. In my case, I had to travel for an interview from 300 km to 950 km, which is quite expensive to go through the first stage of the interview and did not guarantee you a job. The risks of failing an interview and wasting money were pretty high. Suddenly, I saw a vacancy for a remote analyst away 950 km from me. I decided to try because there were no financial risks in this case. Since then I have been working remotely.

What are the advantages of telecommuting?

Fewer obstacles to enter. As you can see from my example above, the remote passing process in the company has won out of the traditional office in the absence of overhead costs.
Overcoming distances. You can work from anywhere. During this time, I worked in two different cities.
Flexible schedule. Usually, such companies have flexible hours and the ability to work part-time, full-time, or a combination of both.
Time to work. In big cities, in the morning and evening, it always means traffic jams when people go to and back from work, it can take up to 2 hours one way. You have extra hours per day that you can spend however you want.
Food. You no longer need to spend money on dinners in a cafe (some can refund money), it is also not always possible to eat according to your preferences in the city center. When cooking at home, you can eat healthy food, follow different diets, which is quite difficult in public places. I switched to healthy food and optimized my daily calorie intake, and later move to intermittent fasting 16/8.
Salary. By saving on costs, you can pay a higher wage than the average for the region, but lower than with the capitals. There is one of the key benefits for the employer.
International experience. The distances for such companies not a big deal and the boundaries are erased, often possible to work with international clients or partners. The possibility to obtain such experience is higher.

Then what are the disadvantages in this case? The main disadvantages are related to self-motivation, social communication, and organization of one’s time:

Distraction. At home, there are a lot of things that might distract you from the work process (people, pets, messengers, cozy atmosphere, lack of control).
Social communication. By working from home, your social network is limited by remote communication. You will feel hungry for real communication that can sink you into depression.
Self-motivation. In most cases, remote work means performing any tasks or KPIs on your own. Which requires high inner motivation and time management. Draw your schedule: what time to wake up, complete the work plan, lunch, the second work plan, …, dinner, do sport. Over time it does not seems a piece of cake.
Weak corporate culture. Nobody else brings pizza or cakes to the office after work to share or celebrate an event, no business trips, and joint events.

In the long run, the listed disadvantages become highly significant and you constantly need to deal with them so that productivity does not suffer.

What are the advantages of telecommuting?

Fewer obstacles to enter. As you can see from my example above, the remote passing process in the company has won out of the traditional office in the absence of overhead costs.
Overcoming distances. You can work from anywhere. During this time, I worked in two different cities.
Flexible schedule. Usually, such companies have flexible hours and the ability to work part-time, full-time, or a combination of both.
Time to work. In big cities, in the morning and evening, it always means traffic jams when people go to and back from work, it can take up to 2 hours one way. You have extra hours per day that you can spend however you want.
Food. You no longer need to spend money on dinners in a cafe (some can refund money), it is also not always possible to eat according to your preferences in the city center. When cooking at home, you can eat healthy food, follow different diets, which is quite difficult in public places. I switched to healthy food and optimized my daily calorie intake, and later move to intermittent fasting 16/8.
Salary. By saving on costs, you can pay a higher wage than the average for the region, but lower than with the capitals. There is one of the key benefits for the employer.
International experience. The distances for such companies not a big deal and the boundaries are erased, often possible to work with international clients or partners. The possibility to obtain such experience is higher.

Then what are the disadvantages in this case? The main disadvantages are related to self-motivation, social communication, and organization of one’s time:

Distraction. At home, there are a lot of things that might distract you from the work process (people, pets, messengers, cozy atmosphere, lack of control).
Social communication. By working from home, your social network is limited by remote communication. You will feel hungry for real communication that can sink you into depression.
Self-motivation. In most cases, remote work means performing any tasks or KPIs on your own. Which requires high inner motivation and time management. Draw your schedule: what time to wake up, complete the work plan, lunch, the second work plan, …, dinner, do sport. Over time it does not seems a piece of cake.
Weak corporate culture. Nobody else brings pizza or cakes to the office after work to share or celebrate an event, no business trips, and joint events.

In the long run, the listed disadvantages become highly significant and you constantly need to deal with them so that productivity does not suffer.