Access to more employees / employers

Access to more employees / employers[edit]

Remote work allows employees and employers to be matched despite major location differences.^[30]

Working responsibility is given to the employee is skilled in that area of work.^[54]

Relocation opportunity[edit]

Remote workers may have the opportunity to relocate to another city or state for potential job opportunities and or lower cost of living. A 2020 survey found that 2.4% of people or 4.9 million Americans say they have moved because of remote work in 2020.^[55]

Potential drawbacks and concerns[edit]

Drawbacks due to reduced face-to-face interactions[edit]

The technology to communicate is not advanced enough to replicate face-to-face office interactions. Room for mistakes and miscommunication can increase. According to media richness theory (1986), face-to-face interactions provide the capacity to process rich information: ambiguous issues can be clarified, immediate feedback can be provided, and there is personalized communication (e.g. body language, tone of voice).^[56]

Remote work requires the use of various types of media to communicate, such as videotelephony, telephone, and email, which have drawbacks such as time lags, or ease of deciphering emotions and can reduce the speed and ease at which decisions are made.^[30] Asynchronous communication tends to be more difficult to manage and requires much greater coordination than synchronous communication. A phenomenon of "Zoom fatigue" has set in with amount of video meetings popularized by remote working. There have been four causes identified: The size of the faces on the screen and amount of eye contact required, looking at yourself during the video call is tiring, remaining still during the video call to stay in the screen, and communicating without gestures and non-verbal cues.^[57]

Face-to-face interactions increase interpersonal contact, connectedness, and trust.^[49]

In a 2012 study, 54% of remote workers thought they lost out on social interaction and 52.5% felt they lost out on professional interaction.^[58]

Remote working can hurt working relationships between remote workers and their coworkers, especially if their coworkers do not work remotely. Coworkers who do not work remotely can feel resentful and jealous because they may consider it unfair if they are not allowed to work remotely as well. Remote workers miss out on in person companionship and do not benefit from on-site perks.^[59][36][60]

Adaptive structuration theory studies variations in organizations as new technologies are introduced^[61] Adaptive structural theory proposes that structures (general rules and resources offered by the technology) can differ from structuration (how people actually use these rules and resources).^[46] There is an interplay between the intended use of technology and the way that people use the technology. Remote work provides a social structure that enables and constrains certain interactions.^[62] For instance, in office settings, the norm may be to interact with others face-to-face. To accomplish interpersonal exchange in remote work, other forms of interaction need to be used. AST suggests that when technologies are used over time, the rules and resources for social interactions will change.^[61] Remote work may alter traditional work practices,^[46] such as switching from primarily face-to-face communication to electronic communication.

Sharing information within an organization and teams can become more challenging when working remotely. While in the office, teams naturally share information and knowledge when they meet each other, for example, during coffee breaks. Sharing information requires more effort and proactive action when random-encounters do not happen.^[63] The sharing of tacit information also often takes place in unplanned situations where employees follow the activities of more experienced team members.^[64]

With remote work, it may also be difficult to obtain timely information, unless the regular sharing of information is taken care of separately. The situation where team members don't know enough about what others are doing can lead them to make worse decisions or slow down decision-making.

From an anthropological perspective, remote work can interfere with the process of sensemaking, the forging of consensus or of a common worldview, which involves absorbing a wide range of signals.^[65]

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