Even though remote work has become more popular nowadays, there are still a lot of myths and prejudices around it. And of course, a lot of memes . Prejudice number 1: remote workers are less productive than workers who go into the office every day . This is not true. Nicholas Bloom and graduate student James Liang ran a research with call center workers. For the 9 months long experiment, half of the workers were allowed to work from home while the other half had to work from the office during that time. From the survey responses and performance data, they concluded that the staff that worked from home was not only happier and less likely to quit, but they were also more productive than the people who worked from the office. The causes of the productivity increase are probably the quieter environment and the staff that worked from home, worked more hours. They started earlier, had shorter brakes and worked until the end of the day.

Another myth is that remote work can only be done with a few job types. This was true for the past, when only a computer was needed for jobs like coding, programming, copywriting, etc. But technology has improved and almost every job type has the option to work remotely. This is possible thanks to the access to video conferencing technology, like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, cloud based software like Google Docs, collaboration tools like Slack and the access to high speed internet. This made the number of remote workers grow. How beautiful is it not having to move to meet people?

The third most common myth is that remote workers are lonely and sad. And even though there is such a thing as remote workplace loneliness and many remote workers do indeed feel lonely, it’s not necessarily the case for everyone. Many freelancers work from a coffee shop, a coworking place, a park, etc. So as long as you have an internet connection, you can work from anywhere you want. You can even go to another country and travel the world while working!

Balance between work and private life seems to be the main reason why people choose to work remotely And not in this sense: 77% of remote workers say that they are more productive when working from home, 74% would be less likely to quit their job if they have the option to work from home and the average income of remote workers is $4.000 more than that of others. The three biggest challenges of remote work are: “pulling out the plug” after finishing work, loneliness and good communication and/or teamwork. Do you think you can make it? I think you can. ​