I love working remotely! That is not something I would have imagined saying just over a year ago. The sudden quarantine and work-from-home health safety mandates have evolved from bearable and into an enjoyable lifestyle. Of course, the quarantine part is okay while necessary, but oh-my how deeply restaurants, parks, and leisurely travel are missed! That said, I learned that I can remote-in to my workplace computer and successfully do everything I need to do for my job responsibilities without having to spend over an hour a day in traffic, losing income on gas, parking fees and working lunches and— you get the point. We all do now!

Many employers have already taken the stay-at-home mandates and used it as an opportunity to transform their labor into a majority remote workforce. Many more are having that conversation now. As it turns out, not only is working from home beneficial to the financial and personal wellness of most modern workers, it is also a shrewd fiscal and environmental move. It is quickly proving to be both cost-saving and transformational for businesses, governments, and learning institutions alike. In 2021, working remotely just makes sense!

After a year of working from home abruptly and mandatorily, I have found zero immediate reasons that require my physical being to be stationed 40 hours a week inside my physical workplace office. Working remotely has worked out well. I have found a new surprising level of efficiency in my productivity after losing the daily “grind” of getting to and from work. Apparently, there is a lot more time, energy, and money going into prepping for, getting to, and decompressing from the daily work flow than I ever imagined. The ~175 hours per year or so I spent in traffic alone is now spent on other more beneficial things I enjoy doing, such as taking leisurely walks with my husband. As simple as it sounds, I no longer feel like I am scheduling in time to exercise— it just organically is a part of my day now.

There is literally more time in my day when working remotely. The office hours are consistent, I still work 08:00 – 16:30, but the hour or more spent getting ready for work, the half-hour commute to the physical office and the half-hour commute back home and the long showers to wash off the day and transition to home life are no longer a part of my day, no longer a part of work. All of this makes working hours easily 06:30 -18:00. Time that did not advance my employers’ needs or benefit, but that time does significantly contribute to my personal wellness as a human being. It makes me so happy to feel accomplishment each day, professionally, instead of thinking about that terrible driver whom cut me off, or the fact that gas prices are going up again, or heaven-forbid, waking up “late” at 07:00 and panicking in an attempt to make it to my physical workplace by 08:00. I do not feel rushed. I feel empowered as an employee and I am focused on my workday from the very start until the very end. It is great!

I do miss the social aspect of the physical workplace. I am not a complete introvert. I enjoy office banter with my colleagues. I enjoy the synergy produced in those particularly auspicious meetings. I miss having someone across the hall if I want to bounce ideas back-and-forth. Thankfully, all of these cons have easy solutions when working remotely is not a state mandate because the entire globe is under a stay-at-home order due to a novel pandemic. Working remotely can certainly still mean interacting in person with others. In fact, I think going to the physical workplace office one or two days a week is still a great option. I think that a one or two day weekly frequency of the remote workforce coming together may prove to even produce further innovation and perhaps sustain better employee-employer moral. But the every day of the to-and-fro-and-here-we-go-again ritual in that time to and from work proved over 2020 to be a daily unnecessity, at best.

Perhaps another component of combatting the climate and housing crises will include remote employment in our post-pandemic norm? A majority of once office-dwelling commuters driving alone to-and-from work five times a week are now instead emitting those fossil fuels once or twice a week, or not at all. Energy resources consumed to power traditional workplaces will evaporate. That may be a good start at cutting the USA’s carbon emissions. At least from the private and public sectors.

When employees are able to work remotely, they are able to find more reasonable housing options in their region. They are not as pressured into living in high density areas as closely to their workplaces in the city as possible. Maybe in turn this will relieve some pressure in housing markets, making buying a home more than just a dream for most Americans. I posit the climate change and housing crises because the benefits of working remotely are vast and beyond a simple preference of the modern American professional workforce. Working remotely is now common sense.