The phrase “work from anywhere” has become quite the talking point recently—particularly as more and more companies move to hybrid working and remote-first models. Until 2021, working remotely was synonymous with working from home. This was true during the pandemic, when the large majority had no choice. But it was true before that, too.
Work from anywhere (WFA) is a flexible work arrangement that gives employees the option to work from any location without being tied to the office or a specific area. In doing so, it makes use of technology to enable remote work and provide a better work-life balance for employees.
In the post-pandemic world, remote work is no longer limited to just a home setting. As offices reopen and working patterns continue to evolve, a new movement is taking shape—and it’s called work from anywhere.
If you’re keen to find out what this means for you and your organization, read on to discover:
- What work from anywhere actually means
- How it differs from traditional remote work
- The benefits of WFA
- Some of the common challenges (and how to overcome them)
Let’s dive into how work from anywhere is reshaping businesses–and what it could mean for you.
What Is Work From Anywhere? A Definition
Work from anywhere (WFA) is a flexible approach to working where an organization empowers their employees to work productively and autonomously from anywhere. This could be at home, in an office, from a coffee shop, on a train, in a co working space, at a hotel… you get the idea.
Being empowered to work from anywhere means having the tools, resources and flexibility to set up your workspace (and to be productive) at a location that is right for you. This is a change from the working traditions of old, where it was believed that employees could only be productive in an office space.
WFA pushes back on the notion that work is a place you go and instead implies that it is a thing you do. The beauty of WFA is that when work isn’t tethered to a single location, organizations can harness the power of environments geared towards greater productivity, collaboration and innovation.
Curious how HulerHub supports a WFA model in real life? Book a demo and see how it works.
Work From Anywhere vs Remote Work
Work from anywhere and remote working are the same thing, right? Well, yes. Kind of. But the concept of work from anywhere is more than just a flexible working arrangement.
When the pandemic hit, one thing became crystal clear: lots of organizations weren’t prepared for a full-scale shift to remote work. Policies and procedures weren’t in place, employees didn’t know how to work effectively away from the workplace, and the right technology wasn’t at hand to facilitate productivity and collaboration.
Work from anywhere is a company-wide commitment to the notion that some or all employees can work effectively from anywhere. It is not a flexible working arrangement agreed on a case-by-case basis, but a regular way of working. For WFA to work, organizations need the right infrastructure in place to support the productivity, collaboration and autonomy of their employees.
What Are The Benefits Of Working From Anywhere?
Embracing the concept of working from anywhere unlocks a wide range of valuable benefits for both employees and their organizations:
Increased Productivity
There are certain types of work that require intense amounts of concentration and minimal distractions. As we all know, not every environment is suited to this. In the office, for example, a developer might be subject to multiple interruptions while working on a tricky piece of code, which can lead to slower completion times and more errors.
With work from anywhere, employees are empowered to choose the right environment for them. Importantly, this doesn’t have to be their home or office. The right environment could be a coffee shop, library, co-working space or indeed a quiet corner within your workplace.
Flexibility
Work-life balance is a hot topic of late. When the majority of workers got a taste of what life could be like away from the office, the game changed for good.
Work from anywhere gives employees the flexibility to tend to their everyday responsibilities alongside work. Having this freedom of choice can help employees prioritise what’s important to them while balancing the needs of their company. Employees given the choice to work from anywhere also feel more empowered, which leads to higher levels of motivation and productivity.
Better Collaboration
Many employers believe that working from anywhere will reduce collaboration and creativity, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. That being said, it’s important to be strategic about how people work together and what is done to facilitate that.
For many, collaboration, innovation and creativity happen best in the company of others. When individuals come together and bounce ideas off each other, there’s always potential for great things to happen.
Capturing creativity in a WFA model means understanding that there’s a time and place for everything. Increasingly, many businesses are doing away with the siloed cubicles of old and making their office spaces hubs of collaboration. This approach understands that collaboration is experiential. People need to feel connected, seen and heard for it to work. Collaboration is entirely possible in a WFA model if employers take steps to make accessible spaces and tools readily available to their teams.
Ready to empower your team with the flexibility they’re asking for? Book a demo to see how HulerHub makes work from anywhere seamless.
Resilience & Adaptability
In 2020, businesses were forced to adapt to new ways of working overnight. This sudden change demonstrated to us all that the need to adapt is paramount for growth, regardless of circumstance.
The pandemic taught us all, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, that you never know what you’re going to get in life. Having the infrastructure to work from anywhere gives your business the edge should something beyond your control happen again. It also means your employees are primed to be productive from anywhere with an innate understanding of their best ways of working.
Fewer Skills Gaps
There are two elements to this benefit in a work-from-anywhere model. The first is that, by offering remote and in-office working, you increase the talent pool available to your business. Having the flexibility to recruit an individual who isn’t local provides the flexibility to fill those skills gaps in your organization.
Benefit number two is that working from anywhere encourages digital transformation. This, in turn, paves the way for exciting possibilities. For example, saving time with technology allows employees to develop areas they may not have had the time to previously. In doing so, they can provide more value to your business.
Happier Employees
Employee wellbeing and happiness are paramount to a successful business. Your people are the foundation of your organization; without them, nothing works as it should. Empowering employees to work from anywhere can help them pursue a more balanced life. With this, they can pursue the areas of work they love, stay in touch with colleagues, prioritize what’s important, and find room for growth.
Want to learn how the right tech can enhance employee wellbeing? Don’t miss our piece on how WorkTech can transform employee wellbeing.
What Are The Challenges Of Working From Anywhere?
While working from anywhere does invite some challenges, the benefits far outweigh them. When done correctly, these difficulties can be offset to create a strong, innovative and focused workforce.
Insufficient Tech
As we mentioned, WFA inevitably leads to digital transformation. When done well, digital transformation can boost productivity, empower your employees and help to plug the skills gaps in your organization.
One of the biggest priorities for businesses is ensuring the right technology is in place to support WFA. The majority of knowledge workers use a myriad of different tools in their day-to-day roles. If accessing these tools from home, a coffee shop or a co-working space is difficult, expect to see burnout and low engagement. The rise in popularity of digital workplace platforms and virtual offices is a powerful signal to employers that, if they want to make any form of hybrid work successful, they must offer tools that facilitate productivity.
For a deeper dive into how digital tools are shaping the modern workplace, read our guide to the digital employee experience.
Communication Difficulties
A distributed workforce can find communicating a struggle. Though platforms like Zoom, Slack and Microsoft Teams are invaluable, they don’t always work for employees in different timezones.
While it might seem like a challenge, giving employees an asynchronous communication channel (such as a Slack channel or shared Google Doc) can result in better problem solving and collaboration. Of course, we’re not saying there’s no longer a place for in-person communication. There absolutely is! Care should be taken to ensure those team calls and group chats are accessible to all involved, wherever they are.
Curious about how asynchronous work supports distributed teams? You might enjoy our post on the benefits and challenges of asynchronous work.
Knowledge Sharing
Another challenge to working from anywhere is how employees share knowledge. One of the benefits of on-site working is that everyone is together. If someone has a question, they can ask someone else and get an answer quickly. Ensuring information is available and searchable makes finding the right information much easier. Implementing online forums encourages knowledge sharing by creating a one-stop shop for questions and answers.
Another way to encourage knowledge sharing is through mentoring programs. A big concern for many organizations with a WFA setup is how junior members of staff learn on the job. Offering mentoring to team members gives them a structured program in which they can learn, ask and grow regardless of where they are.
Low Employee Engagement
Many managers and workers worry that working apart will lead to isolation and a sense of disconnection. But this isn’t down to working remotely (or indeed from anywhere). Instead, it’s a symptom of poor communication.
Remote workers have and do report feeling cut off from information they would normally get in an office space. What’s more, virtual communication isn’t always the same as having a one-on-one chat in person.
There are a few ways to ensure engagement doesn’t wane and your people feel connected. One of the most effective is to facilitate intentional experiences. Encourage these experiences by providing space for employees and leaders to chat, get to know each other, and share ideas.
Difficulties Evaluating Performance
In an office space, it’s easy to conduct one-to-one appraisals or evaluate an employee’s performance and soft skills. However, this isn’t necessarily true with distributed workforces.
Some organisations recognised this difficulty and turned to productivity trackers like presence indicators and always on webcams to keep tabs on employees. However, these extreme measures felt patronising and invasive with arguably no effect on output. Indeed, many employees disliked these measures so much they found ways to ‘game’ the system.
Comprehensive thought must be given to how leaders monitor productivity and evaluate performance within their distributed workforce. Firstly, they should address any unconscious bias against those that work remotely vs those that come in the office. Secondly, robust processes should be put in place to evaluate performance and reward progress equally within a WFA model.
Cybersecurity Concerns
WFA doesn’t just have human implications, it has digital ones too. When you embrace a work from anywhere approach, you need to do more to safeguard and protect employee, corporate and customer data as it becomes more spread out and accessible.
To do this, more and more organisations are moving away from traditional perimeter-based network defence to a new, zero trust security model that is more fitting to the mobile workforce. The Zero Trust model verifies each request as though it originates from an open network, regardless of where the request originates or what resource it accesses. That means that every access request is fully authenticated, authorised and encrypted before access is granted.
Equality, Fairness & Equal Opportunities
There are two sides to this coin when it comes to work from anywhere. On the one hand, WFA has the potential to make the workplace more accessible than ever for some individuals. On the other, it also has the potential to make certain sectors of your workforce invisible, namely those who choose to work remotely for the majority of the time.
It is important, when building your WFA model, that you stay sensitive to these kinds of biases and take steps to balance them. For example, there is a real danger that remote workers get passed over for promotion or a pay rise despite being just as productive and skilled as their in-office counterparts. Failing to address these areas and listen to the needs of your diverse workforce runs the risk of your organisation losing invaluable talent to other businesses who are willing to recognise and reward to efforts of employees wherever they work.
It Doesn’t Work For Every Job Role
Working from anywhere isn’t for everyone. Some jobs have to be done on-site, and that won’t change—at least not yet. That said, robotics and VR technology are making it possible for some workers to carry out even the most technical jobs remotely. In taking a hard look at your organization, you might find that more work can be done from anywhere than you think. Doing so empowers your employees to be more present, engaged and productive than ever before.
Solving these challenges starts with the right digital infrastructure. Book a HulerHub demo to explore how we help businesses like yours make WFA work—without the friction.
Implement Work From Anywhere with Huler
Here at Huler, we love the concept of working from anywhere—it’s a powerful way to help employees balance their work and life while still allowing for collaboration. Though mobilizing a WFA policy requires quite a big shift in culture, tech, operations and leadership styles, many organizations are already a lot closer than they think.
The next step is refining remote working practices to get the most value from them. That’s where our innovative workplace platform comes in. We developed HulerHub to meet the needs of remote teams and support growth regardless of the location. Intrigued? Of course you are! Request a demo to see it for yourself and discover exactly what it can do for your business.
Oh, and if you’d like to keep reading, here are a few more posts we think you’ll love:
- What Is Digital Employee Experience
- How WorkTech can Transform Employee Wellbeing
- Embracing Diversity and Inclusion in the Age of Remote and Hybrid Teams
- 15 Tools You Need for Your Virtual Workplace
