Common Challenges of Working from Home and Solutions for Employees

Since the pandemic in 2020, working from home has become a trend and has been gaining more popularity. Now many people prefer to work remotely instead of going to a workplace. 

In Stanford’s monthly study about working from home, they surveyed around 10,000 workers. They found out that 27% of paid full-time days were worked from home.

However, working from home can cause challenges such as unproductivity and whatnot. Different workers face different issues that make remote jobs a difficult task. In this article, we will discuss some of these challenges or issues that remote workers face and also provide solutions on how to tackle them.

Common Challenges and Their Solutions

We have created a list of different problems faced by remote workers. It is given in the following.

1. No Motivation to Work

The environment of a home can often cause productivity problems for employees as it is very difficult for them to get motivated for work. The environment of a workplace, on the other hand, is much more suited to keep you going and make it through even long and hard days.

A person might get too comfortable when at home. This can result in him becoming lazy and start ignoring his work. Plus, when you have no worry about being just in time for your office (like getting there sharp at 9), it will be tougher for you to start your day.

Solution

One trick you can follow is to create a list of daily tasks that you have to complete at certain times of the day. Following this sort of schedule can keep you motivated to work. Other than these daily goals, you should make some long-term goals and work towards accomplishing them as well.

Also, you should regularly review these goals of yours so that you stay motivated. If you have clarity about what your goals are, then gaining motivation won’t be a problem

2. Time Management

When you are working from home, you don’t have a proper schedule to follow. Remote workers usually tend to have flexible schedules and have a very unorganized way of completing tasks. 

Doing work whenever you want can seem appealing at first, but it can get really messy. You can forget to do things. Similarly, some tasks can be time-sensitive. You might accidentally skip them and cause problems for your company. When you don’t have a proper schedule, many things can go wrong.

Solution

You can make up a schedule that tells you what task/activity you have to do and when the time for it comes. This type of schedule may have to be regularly changed if your job is dynamic in nature. But, doing this is necessary.

It will be a difficult task for you to manage your work in a timely manner if you don’t have a routine in place.

3. Difficulty in Document Management

Some jobs require their employees to manage a large number of documents. In offices or workplaces, such documents are presented in an organized manner. However, it can be a difficult task to manage large piles of physical documents at home.

Unless you have a very separate and private place to work at home, storing such files can be a difficult task. Many households have children that can damage these documents. 

Solution

Keeping hard copies of documents is not a wise step. You should digitize these documents and store them on your computer’s storage. This can be done easily by extracting the textual information from the documents and storing them as typical DOC or DOCX files i.e., the ones you can work on using MS Word and Google Docs, etc. This task can be performed with the help of the Optical Character Recognition technology.

The most common application of this technology is picture to text converter. This tool can extract text from images, and by using it, you can convert physical documents into digital documents in seconds.

4. Connectivity Issues

When working from home, you might have to attend online meetings, send work-related emails, surf the web for research purposes, and much more. In short, you would need to use the internet. 

In many cases, household Wi-Fi connections are not very reliable. For one their speeds are terrible. Secondly, there can be other issues as well such as someone might trip over a wire and turn off the modem. 

Similarly, if there are multiple internet users in the house and they all use the Wi-fi at once, its speed will drastically drop. Issues like such can disrupt your workflow.

Solution 

You should keep a backup internet device, such as a portable internet device, in case your main Wi-fi stops working. In this way, even if your house’s internet stops working, your work doesn’t get stopped. 

You can also ask your superiors for a reliable internet connection if you are unable to find one yourself.

5. Communication Issues

While working from home, the most common way of communicating with co-workers or superiors is by video chat. However, it is very difficult to gather all the people at once and have a proper meeting.

Because of these problems, people often tend to communicate via text. This method also has limitations. You can not completely express yourself through a text. These problems related to communication can really disturb the workflow of you and your colleagues.

Solution

It is the duty of the team leader to organize proper and scheduled meetings. If you are in charge of such matters, then you should ensure that you are providing the best technology for communication. 

Similarly, as an employee, it is your duty to have updated gear, such as a good-quality mic and headphones. Other than that, you should know how the communication software works prior to attending a meeting through it.

6. House Distractions 

It is quite easy to get distracted in your home. Most homes don’t have a separate area or room dedicated to remote jobs. That’s why you might have to work in the general areas of your house.

Here, your attention can get diverted to things other than work. For example, if you hear some exciting news on television, you might go out for a 5-minute break. But sometimes you can get distracted, and those 5 minutes can turn into hours. In this way, you might waste your time due to the distractions at home.

Solution

Try to work in the parts of your house where no one else usually comes—for example, the guest room or the drawing room. In most houses, such places are quiet and have minimum distractions. 

If that is not possible, then work in a room with a closed door. In this way, you can minimize distractions. You should also ask your family members not to disturb you unless it is very important. 

7. Non-Serious Behavior Due to Improper Supervision

When you work remotely, you don’t have the same pressure from your superiors as you had in a physical workspace. Your boss might get lenient with remote workers. This results in you not caring that much and slacking off.

However, this type of behavior usually doesn’t go unnoticed. Sooner or later, your behavior will get noticed. When this happens, you might get a warning or maybe even a suspension. That’s why it is vital that you take your work seriously, even when you are working from home.

Solution 

It is a matter of morality and honesty. You should remind yourself that if you don’t work and still get paid, then it would be equivalent to stealing. Try to stay honest and also encourage your co-workers to work properly.

Even if nobody is monitoring your work, you shouldn’t be dishonest or corrupt. Try your best to work hard, and don’t break any moral codes.

Conclusion

Working remotely can be helpful and beneficial due to different reasons, but it is also fraught with different issues. These issues can make working difficult, which is why they have to be properly addressed.

In the post above, we have looked at some of the main problems that employees can face when working away from the office. Hopefully, by following the solutions provided above, you will be able to make yourself more productive and in form during your home-working routine.