In the past, most people used to travel to their place of work. With increased use of computers, the internet and smart phones, more and more people are starting to work from home. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this development?

In earlier times, working from home was not an option as there was no technical infrastructure to support it,

therefore

, most of the public had to commute to work locations through public or private transport.

However

, in recent times, with the advancement of smart devices, laptops, desktops and the world wide web numerous people have been preferring to work remotely.

This

type of work style has some significant benefits, yet with a few drawbacks as well. There are numerous merits of adapting to a remote workstyle method.

Firstly

,

this

reduces the amount of public commuting on a daily basis thereby diminishing traffic congestion and air pollution.

For example

, as per a press release in New Delhi, during the recent covid lockdown, there was a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions yielding a lot of fresh air to residents.

Secondly

, the infrastructure required in the metro and cosmopolitan cities to support the businesses and offices would no longer be required which would lead to less urbanisation and dissemination of the crowds across the towns and villages.

On the other hand

, there are two predominant disadvantages that come to my mind. The

first

one is people will lose the social aspect of life completely while working from home due to not physically being present at the office. Another major concern is new joiners find it difficult to cope with the existing workforce due to a lack of proper training. Even though companies organize virtual training sessions it's quite difficult for a student that recently passed out from college to adapt to corporate culture.

For instance

, the attrition rates that were recently published by all the multinational companies in India suggest that most of the resignations are from individuals with less than a year of experience. In conclusion, every company must come up with a hybrid model to allow employees to choose the better choice for them.

However

, workers must be fostered to come to offices at least once or twice a week to encourage the social aspect as well as help train the new joiners.