Is Telecommuting the Future?

More and more companies are migrating to remote offices and leaving brick and mortar buildings in the dust. According to QZ.com, Auttomatic, the company who owns WordPress, recently ditched their gorgeous San Francisco office after giving its employees the option to work from home. Only five employees were coming into the 15,000-square foot building on a regular basis. In this case, it was a no brainer for Auttomatic. It does, however, still have brick and mortar offices in Maine and Cape Town, South Africa.

Companies such as Buffer, Zapier, FlexJobs, UpWorthy, and Thin Pig Media all offer 100% remote opportunities. While this saves the company overhead costs, it also allows them the ability to select from nationwide talent instead of narrowing it down to a certain geographical location. Since 2005, regular telecommuting has increased by 103% and 3.7 million employees now work remotely at least half of the time. This isn’t counting the individuals who own their own businesses and work from home.

As mentioned above, TPM works 100% remotely. Before joining this team, I was worked in the main office for a nationwide company with 1,000+ employees. To go from that hectic atmosphere to working out of my home office has been a drastic change, to say the least. While I love having the opportunity to work from home or wherever I choose, it wasn’t the easiest transition. I missed taking breaks with friends at work, walking around the pond chatting about weekend plans, and discussing what we learned in the latest meeting.

I’ve now been with TPM for six months and truly think working remotely has more benefits than drawbacks. My creativity is never stifled working from wherever I choose, versus working in a cubicle. The stress of commuting and traffic, not to mention spending money on gas, is a non-issue. Wearing whatever I want to work is also a nice perk. Overall, telecommuting really offers an employee a chance at a healthy work-life balance that many office environments do not.

If you work from home, what do you see as the benefits and/or drawbacks? Tweet us @ThinPigMedia