All of those stereotypes are true. But like Hollywood movie stardom, the glitz has its price. As more and more workers are afforded the opportunity to work from home, society will start to see that there’s a load of compromising on the road to our horizon, to borrow a phrase from songwriter Glen Campbell.
First, let’s take a look at the demographics. The definition used by government to describe telecommuting workers is that they are full-time employees who are paid by someone other than themselves for more than half their working hours.
While the stereotype of a home worker has long been a mother with young children, the United States Census Bureau begs to differ. Its annual American Community Survey pegs the typical telecommuter as a 49-year-old college graduate (equally divided between men and women) who earns about $58,000 per year and works for a company that has more than 100 employees.
The number of telecommuters is growing as managers become more comfortable with technology and the ability to track productivity. The American Community Survey estimates that telecommuting has grown 79 percent between 2005 and 2012. It now comprises more than 2.5 percent of the American workforce, or more than 3 million workers.
The Benefits
What’s driving the trend is savings. Employers that don’t have the overhead of maintaining an office space, parking and other expenses can save a lot of money. A firm called Global Workplace Analytics has a division called the Telework Research Network, and it claims that federal employees who worked from home on snow days saved the government $32 million in 2014.
Of course, the magic doesn’t happen on its own. A firm needs to give considerable thought to its expectations and work structure to accommodate the lack of a physical presence. Employees, for their part, have to maintain contact with the home office, keeping colleagues abreast of their project progress and being available during normal work hours for consultation.
But here’s the thing – while working from home has its benefits, it also can cause workers to lapse into some unhealthy habits. Here are a few that might manifest themselves if you find yourself laboring from your living room.
The Pitfalls of the Home Office
1) Longer Hours – Because you’re always at the office, the temptation to work is always there. That’s great for your productivity, but not so good for your family or social life. A healthy life includes a work-play balance, and having the siren call of paperwork so readily at hand is hard to resist for some.
2) Eating Habits – People in the office have defined work hours, and it’s noticed if you frequently slip away to the company cafeteria or soda machine. But at home, everything is within easy reach – last night’s cold pizza, which you wouldn’t bring to the office normally, is there and waiting for you morning, noon and night.
3) Social Isolation – Sure, you can e-mail colleagues, but the informal meetings at the water cooler are no longer possible, and the ability to catch up on office gossip and divine the tea leaves of the situation aren’t there. Plus, because you tend to work longer hours, you may postpone the out-of-office lunches and after-work spontaneous meetups that are a crucial part of being human in the work world.
4) Cleanliness – You wouldn’t go to work without a morning shower and other grooming. You would even put on clean clothes. But the telecommuter has no such restrictions, since the cat doesn’t particularly mind what you wear. Last week’s sweats are no problem, the morning shower can wait until tomorrow, and shaving isn’t something a man needs to do every day anyway.
5) Sleeping Too Much – When you don’t have to get up and battle the world via your morning commute, you have the flexibility to extend your time in the sack. That may be fine if you have a flexible start time, but it also could mean that you delay hitting the tasks at hand until later in the day, and that may backlog other people waiting on your work. That can add to stress, creating a vicious cycle of working later and then needing more sleep to function.
6) Lack of exercise – The daily commute for a lot of people involves walking to public transportation, and then a brisk stroll to the office. Even during the day, you’ll find yourself walking around, whether to go to the cafeteria, talk to a worker in another part of the building or grab something from the supply room. At home, everything is within arm’s reach, creating a sedentary lifestyle that gradually softens that once rock-solid abdomen.
7) Not Saying No – Because you’re at home, it’s presumed that you have time to be the concierge to the world. Package delivery? No problem. Watching the neighbor’s kid for a half-hour? Not an issue. Making an appointment for our spouse or picking up the dry cleaning? Hey, you have time. Eventually, you’ll feel like you’ve added a part-time job to your regular duties, which can lead to depression.
These are just some of the issues the home work force faces. True, office-bound workers have a whole different set of problems and may look longingly at your setup from the prison of their cubicle. The grass is always greener, and certainly there is a lot to admire about a home working situation. Just pay attention to the habits you may develop as a telecommuter, and you’ll be better able to avoid bad health choices.