Why working remotely is beneficial to companies and employees!

Working remotely has become massively common in recent years and given the pandemic companies realize that some jobs can be completed from the comfort of the employees’ homes. Even before COVID-19, Ad networks, affiliate networks, and media agency firms were moving to remote work culture to cut expenses, reduce commuting time, and improve work-life balance for employees.

To tackle the pros and cons of working remotely, we decided to conduct an interview with one of Adkaizen’s best affiliate managers who’s been with the company for 2+ years and has always been working remotely.

Why working remotely is beneficial to companies and employees Ilija?

• 1) What’s your favorite part about working remotely?

👉🏽 Not being tied to a location. More time for myself as it’s not wasted on traveling to and from work. No dress codes, every day is a casual Friday.

• 2) What’s your daily routine like for working?

👉🏽 Coffee, start working and have another cup, break for a quick dog walk and lunch, and some more work until the day is wrapped. The workday usually consists of daily and weekly routine tasks and meeting clients’ needs.

• 3) What’s the highlight of your day?

👉🏽 When I meaningfully contribute to existing or come up with new work procedures.

• 4) What’s most challenging for you in your daily work routine?

👉🏽 Sometimes there are too many tasks to finish in a single day and in that case, there’s not enough time to do all of them.

• 5) What do you do to recharge each day?

👉🏽 Long walks with my dog after I finish work for the day.

• 6) What’s the most important thing we do to help you be successful working remotely?

👉🏽 Properly communicated manager input and guidance.

• 7) How do you manage distractions during the day? Is it a challenge for you?

👉🏽 I wear headphones all the time, but there aren’t many things that could distract me during the day.

• 8) Have you explored or regularly used a co-working space? What are the benefits that make you go?

👉🏽 No, I view it as almost like going to an office.

• 9) How long have you been working remotely? What were the most challenging and surprising things when you first started?

👉🏽 I’ve been working remotely for around 8-9 years. The most challenging thing when I started was the odd working hours due to aligning with the different timezone.

• 10) What helps you feel connected to others and counteract the potential loneliness of working remotely?

👉🏽 Having the opportunity from time to time to meet colleagues in person. As my wife is also a remote worker and sitting just across me helps with not feeling lonely throughout the day.

• 11) Why did you start working remotely?

👉🏽 By accident, I started working for an overseas company where the majority of the employees worked remotely.

• 12) Do you think you can fully disconnect at the end of the day or when you’re on vacation? What helps you do so?

👉🏽 Yes, going outdoors for walks, socializing, and turning off phone notifications when on vacation.

• 13) What are your usual working hours? How do you maintain flow during your work windows?

👉🏽 I start between 9 and 10 am and finish between 6 and 7 pm with a 1-hour break for lunch and a quick walk. Having a day structure and clear daily tasks helps maintain the flow.

• 14) Are you a morning person, or a night owl?

👉🏽 Neither, I’m somewhere in between, I’m a day person.

• 15) What time of day are you usually the most productive? When is a good/bad time to message or check in with you?

👉🏽 After I had my second-morning coffee. There’s no bad time to message me, I’ll respond during my work hours.

• 16) What’s one thing we could get you to improve your desk setup?

👉🏽 My desk setup can’t be improved at the moment as I lack dedicated space/room for the work environment in my home. But for anybody starting to work remotely, a good office chair is a must.

• 17) What would make you want to return to the office?

👉🏽 Nothing, after so many years working remotely, couldn’t imagine me in an office environment.

• 18) Do you feel like you’re working more/less than before? The same as before?

👉🏽 The workload has increased recently, but so far it’s manageable.

• 19) Do you feel like you’re in danger of burning out? What can we do to change that?

👉🏽 Not at the moment, but there’s so much time in the day to fully dedicate to all pending tasks. Team addition would be welcome to offload some of them.

To sum-up

The learned lesson during-and-post Covid-19 is that most jobs can be performed well and efficiently remotely. The rise of shifting from a company set-up culture to a startup set-up culture is largely due to remote work flexibility and the trust that a company puts in its employees to do the work anywhere they feel comfortable working from. Remote work can be challenging for some indeed, but for the majority, it yields satisfactory results thanks to the team’s productivity and high focus. If Ilija’s experience inspired you to try working remotely, check out our open positions for remote work.