These two terms have come to be used interchangeably, but there is actually a difference between the both terms.
Work from home means that you have to set up a workspace in your home, from where you would carry out your official responsibilities. For the most part, it means you have to work from your home within the state where the company is located, and you may be called in to the office if and when there is a need to. Work from anywhere (commonly known as remote work) means working outside the company’s dedicated office space, in a location of your choice. But it may not necessarily mean that you are working from home. You could be working from a workspace somewhere, a client’s office, an event where you have to network and source for potential clients etc. In such situations, you may not necessarily be available to jump on a team meeting with colleagues at any time of the day, and you may not even be within the state to rush in for any collaborative task.
It is possible for a company to adopt either or both of them, depending on the specific details of your job role and responsibilities. For instance, a media house can have its editor work from home, but the reporters may not have that luxury. They may have to go out to locations to conduct interviews, meet up with potential sources, travel to check out projects, attend conference and the likes, to get information to write up their reports.
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Another example can be a software development company. The software developers may use collaborative tools and work from their homes, while the sales and marketing team may be out on the fields, trying to get the product into the market, by making travels, attending events, meeting up with clients, and other things required to meet on their deliverables.
The key distinction here is that remote work can be done from several locations as it more flexible, but work from home requires you to create a workspace in a single location where you will work from. What most of us were forced to do during the lockdown, is work from home. But now that movement restrictions have eased, a lot of people are simply working remote.
Work from home also tends to have a better sense of routine and stability, since you have a defined work location outside the office. Remote work or work from anywhere is, however, more dynamic and flexible, and your work location could change every single day.
In terms of technological requirements, both of them are heavy on communication and collaboration tools to facilitate work flow. But the remote worker needs to be more adaptable, as his several locations might come with connectivity challenges encountered in diverse locations, and thus require varying network infrastructures.
Like mentioned earlier, some companies may adopt one, both or none of the two concepts, and it is totally based on the peculiarity of their business operations. If you are still wondering why your company will not allow you work remotely, even though you think your job can be performed outside the office locations, here are some possible reasons.
Security Concerns
Allowing employees to work outside the office location introduces additional security risks, depending on the tools the employee uses to get his job done. Accessing sensitive company data from unsecured networks or devices, may compromise the integrity of a company’s data systems and proprietary information, especially if they do not have robust cybersecurity measures in place.
Communication and Collaboration
Tools or not, one cannot deny the fact that working together in a physical location takes communication and collaboration to better levels. Having employees scattered across disparate locations could potentially hinder real-time interaction and collaboration,and so a company may decide to stick to on-site model.
Accountability and Oversight
While we all want to believe that we can work unsupervised and stay productive, truth is that a lot of employees have not shown the results that convinces their employers that they can work unsupervised. Supervising remote employees presents challenges in terms of monitoring performance and ensuring accountability, and if you are talking about employees that have not first shown themselves to be self-starters, productivity can drop significantly.
In conclusion, remote work is an exciting concept, but don’t feel bad if your employer has not implemented it yet. It may not work for your job role and responsibilities. It could also be that they do not have the requisite infrastructure in place to make it work yet. So, work towards fixing the issues and see how it pans out.