Pros and Cons of Remote Work: CEOs’ Insights

Is remote work the future or a failure? What has the recent teleworking surge taught us, and how can CEOs use these lessons to choose the best work arrangement? 

As a CEO, we’re certain you want to pick a working model that works best for your business and your workers. If you’ve been looking for insights into working from home and whether it’s the right fit for you, we’ve got you covered! 

So, we’ve decided to contact CEOs with extensive teleworking experience to ask them for their thoughts on working from home:

• Nadia Harris, Founder of remoteworkadvocate.com,
• Alex Hernandez, Co-Founder of Jobgether,
• Tom Jauncey, CEO of Nautilus Marketing, 
• Theodoric Chew, CEO and Co-Founder of Intellect, and 
• Stefanie Heiter, CEO of Bridging Distance. 

Here’s everything we learned about remote work from them.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Despite many companies switching back to the on-site model, remote work remains relevant and has many benefits to offer.
• A hybrid work arrangement could be a better option for some businesses.
• Those who work remotely usually have more time for their private lives.
• Fostering trust and good working relationships is more difficult when working remotely.
• To reap the benefits of remote work, companies have to set it up properly. 

How beneficial is remote work compared to the in-office model?

With many major companies returning to the office, the Internet is flooded with the debate about whether remote work can yield the same results as the on-site working model. 

So, is remote work a thing of the past? Is the working arrangement to blame for the lack of results, or was the real issue in the way companies implemented telework? 

For Harris, remote work is certainly not a thing of the past. “In fact, it’s still a big part of the future of work, even with some people returning to the office. Remote work has shown its benefits in many fields, offering more flexibility, access to talent from anywhere, and often higher productivity.”

Still, there’s a reason why on-site working has been the only acceptable working model throughout the years. This arrangement makes it easy to collaborate, foster good relationships, build trust, and ensure transparency. 

But, all of this is also possible with remote work. While good communication and trust don’t come as naturally as they do in traditional settings, they are still achievable. 

Hernandez points to a crucial aspect of introducing work-from-home arrangements: 

“Remote work is the future, without any doubt and companies have to embrace it, but with the right setup.”

Harris adds that “the problem for some companies isn’t that remote work doesn’t work, but that they’re not ready for it or haven’t adapted to it properly. For businesses that have the right tools and systems, remote work is thriving and beneficial for everyone.”

Why working from home wasn’t the best fit for some companies?

As Hernandez explains, the tech industry has been going through a crisis for a while now. Instead of examining their management practices, targets, and product market fit, many companies have switched blame to remote work. 

While remote work can’t be the culprit for the tech crisis, Hernandez does point out that the pandemic led to many companies introducing remote rather quickly. As a result, they couldn’t adapt management practices, tools, and communication to the new work model. 

So, it comes as no surprise that a lot of companies have experienced issues working from home.

A lesson to take from this is not to stay away from remote work. Instead, ensure you’re organizing it properly to mitigate common risks that come with this kind of arrangement. 

Once you create an environment where communication, trust, and accountability come easy, you’ll be able to enjoy all of the benefits of remote work. 

Benefits and downsides of remote work from an employer perspective

Will taking time to properly organize and introduce working from home be worth it? You can be the judge of that — once you examine the main perks and challenges remote work has to offer. 

So, here are the main perks of remote work, as highlighted by the CEOs we contacted:

• A larger talent pool as geographical restrictions are removed,
• Saving costs on office space,
• Higher employee retention due to increased satisfaction in workers who were able to choose the working model that suits them, and
• Better work-life balance for both employers and employees due to little to no commute time, ability to attend family events, and take care of themselves and their household during work hours. 

On the other hand, remote work does come with certain downsides. Our contributors pointed to the following disadvantages of remote work:

• Difficulties maintaining company culture without in-person connections,
• Challenges with ensuring productivity without the traditional on-site accountability practices, 
• Possibility of disconnection within the teams due to the lack of informal time between the members, 
• Risk of communication issues and misunderstandings, and
• Tendency to fill out the calendar with too many ineffective meetings due to the desire to stay “on top” of everything.

Pros and cons of remote working for employees

According to the CEOs we talked to, these are the essential advantages for remote workers:

• Better work-life balance due to more time available for family and personal activities,
• Increased flexibility of remote work often leads to higher focus as employees can choose the model that works best for them,
• Higher autonomy due to a higher level of self-management, which brings work ownership and better problem-solving skills, and
• More work opportunities as employees are no longer bound to the local job market.

Unfortunately, employees also experience the downsides of remote work. Here are the most common ones:

• Risk of isolation and lower employee morale due to a disconnect with the team,
• Possibility of diffused boundaries between private and professional life as many workers could have difficulties with switching off,
• Chance of career stagnation due to lower visibility,
• Lack of information (especially informal) typically received in more relaxed in-office gatherings, and
• Challenges with internal networking as most workers come in contact only with employees they work with directly.

How to overcome common remote work challenges

When properly set up, remote work can offer flexibility and increased work-life balance that enhances productivity, increases job satisfaction, and ensures career growth.

So, we asked CEOs to help us come up with helpful tips on how employers can organize remote work to mitigate its most common challenges. 

Improve communication methods

As our experts highlight, maintaining effective communication is difficult when employees can’t meet face-to-face. So, the key aspect to overcoming this issue is perfecting communication methods to ensure everybody has a way of asking for clarification and expressing concerns.  

As Chew notes, employers should “implement structured communication channels, such as regular team check-ins, virtual stand-ups, and defined protocols for project updates. This ensures everyone stays aligned and informed.”

Furthermore, Hernandez advises managers to keep the communication ”asynchronous and fluid. Team members should feel confident enough to share their fears and struggles when they have one.”

Increase accountability 

One of the biggest challenges of remote work for managers is ensuring accountability without micromanaging. 

Harris explains that supervisors often struggle to monitor employee performance in a remote setting. This could “create trust issues or lead to micromanagement, which can harm relationships and undermine independence.”

To mitigate this challenge, Hernandez advises managers to be clear with their expectations “for performance, deadlines, and communication frequency. This gives employees a clear understanding of what success looks like and reduces ambiguity.”

Chew highlights the importance of clarity as well as measuring output instead of process: 

“Set clear goals, expectations, and deadlines, and measure performance based on output rather than hours worked. This allows employees to have autonomy while still holding them accountable for their work.”

Jauncey agrees as he notes that the results-oriented approach is the best way to switch focus from hours worked to achievements. 

In this approach, managers wouldn’t focus on each task and the time employees spent completing it. Instead, they examine the final result, allowing employees autonomy in task completion while maintaining their ownership over the final output. 

This approach reduces the need for employee monitoring tools, which Heiter advises against. She believes that “the overall temptation to replace ‘line of sight’ employee monitoring with technology can quickly and easily backfire.”

Provide frequent feedback 

To further increase engagement and performance, our experts recommend providing regular feedback. 

Chew notes that constructive feedback helps employees stay on track with their objectives and keeps their morale high by recognizing their achievements. 

In addition, it allows employees to “have an avenue to share their concerns so the managers and employers are aware of the challenges faced by their employees.” This ensures everyone is on the same page regarding both the daily tasks and the overall company goals.

Furthermore, it allows supervisors to get regular information on how employees are doing and whether some assignments or deadlines need to be modified.  

Foster relationships and transparency to build trust

Trust and good peer-to-peer and employee-manager relationships reduce the risk of isolation and disconnection. 

By creating an open and transparent working environment and leading by example, managers and employers build trust and ensure their employees operate in a healthy workplace.

Chew recommends creating remote connection points and virtual team building activities to foster relationships within and between the teams. For instance, his company implements 2 informal bonding activities: 

• Coffee Connects: matching 2 workers and encouraging them to set up chats to get to know each other, and
• Lunch & Learn: organizing sessions that allow employees to learn about other teams’ work. 

Moreover, Heiter suggests online scavenger hunts and more inclusive trivia games. As she notes, these activities build relational trust, which is based on interpersonal relationships. 

Another form of trust, transactional trust, is conditional upon how another person performs their commitments. For this, Heiter recommends organizing sessions to coach the team on how to communicate and work together.

Promote a healthy attitude towards work 

Remote work can blur the lines between private and professional lives, which can seriously affect workers’ mental health. 

Chew believes this challenge can be resolved by encouraging workers to set boundaries and designate self-care time. 

He also points out that everything starts with leadership. So, employers should model a healthy attitude towards work by respecting off-hours and promoting wellness initiatives.

Furthermore, Jauncey recommends encouraging employees to set up a designated office space in their homes. Companies could support their workers by providing them with equipment to set up a home office, resulting in a better division between work and home.

Be mindful of cultural differences

With teleworking, employers are able to overcome geographical restrictions and access a larger talent pool. This also comes with the possibility of creating multinational and multicultural teams. But, having a diverse team also means being mindful of cultural barriers and differences. 

To successfully lead a diverse workforce, Hernandez recommends staying away from the one-fits-all management approach, as “not everyone, depending on their country, will react the same way to orders, deadlines, authority, and pressure. Understanding cultures is key.”

Furthermore, Heiter notes that managers should ensure everybody feels respected by having an “understanding of how people from different national cultures communicate and work differently.”

A hybrid setup may mitigate some remote work challenges

If you’re still unsure whether remote work is the right setup for your company, you may prefer easing into teleworking by introducing a hybrid working arrangement first. Furthermore, you may even want to stick to a hybrid work schedule. 

Jauncey suggests that a combination of remote and on-site work might be an even better choice for some companies.

He believes a hybrid arrangement allows companies to balance in-office needs without requiring employees to spend all of their time in the office. Jauncey recommends a 3-2 model, which allows employees to work remotely for 3 days and on-site for 2.

Chew also believes a hybrid work model is a great choice for positions that don’t require constant in-person collaboration. For him, a hybrid model allows for “a balance between flexibility and maintaining a cohesive company culture.” 

All in all, at least some form of remote work is here to stay. Moreover, Chew expects remote and hybrid work models to evolve even further and become more refined and widely accepted. 

Reap the benefits of remote work by properly organizing it

As our experts highlight, remote work is certainly not outdated and has many perks to offer for both employees and employers. The key is to organize it properly to build trust, ensure effective communication, maintain accountability, and create a healthy work atmosphere.

Expert tips from this article will help any team reap the benefits of remote work. But, for Chew, the best way to foster a productive and engaged workforce is to ask employees what they need:

“At the end of the day, there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to remote work. Every company is different and it is important to see what your organization and employees need. Before implementing anything, I encourage leaders to speak to employees to recognize what they want and need first.”