Pleasant greetings everyone!
This week's writing prompt by #ecency-star is on the challenges and opportunities of remote work. I share my thoughts below..
I never thought of working from home as my kind of job needed me to be present at work at all times. My job description deals majorly with kids, not being present would result in a burden on other staff members....and that's something that would not augur well the establishment.
But something happened four years ago, that changed the ideology of regularity at work. Covid-19 pandemic happened and the whole world was on a lock down. That lock down became a spring board for opening me up to remote work.
This chance came because I needed to interact with the kids and make sure that they were occupied with their studies and not merely playing around. Thus began my journey into online tutoring.
photo by RDNE stock project from pexels
Just like that, I began to make educational video contents for these kids and forward it to their parents mobile phones via WhatsApp, this kept the pupils abreast on their academic syllabus and before long it became a massive trend in the education sector and many educational self-help apps were born from this.
Opportunities of remote work
The opportunities that I clearly observed from working remotely from the comfort of my home are as follows;
Time flexibility and control
Working from home afforded me the opportunity of doing my work at my convenience as against the normal scheduled time for work assigned to educators. There was flexibility on the amount of subjects to cover per day.
During those periods, I recall that I didn't have to wake up early to meet up with school time. I was in control of my time and schedules.
Beating traffic and save money
Working from home also saved me time and energy which would have been spent on trying to beat traffic. For the six months that I worked at home that year, I didn't rush out to work. Also, the transport fare to and from work was saved up as I didn't think of that at all.
Forming new deals
Because I was mostly online, I began to research several investments that I could venture into that would serve as a passive stream of income for me. This led me to broaden my horizon and began to form new relationships online via social media platforms. I got to learn about a few like affiliate marketing and amazon kdp.
photo by Kate Graur from pexels
Challenges of remote work
The challenges I encountered were;
Little space
While I made the educational videos, I was not really comfortable in my little set up for a classroom. I had to turn a part of my sitting room to a classroom but it was not as convenient for me like when I was in my classroom.
Lack of resources
The resources I mean to point out here refers to my teaching aids and charts which helps in the communication of a particular subject to the students. Secondly, when I give hime tasks to the kids, there is no follow-up and feedback because some parents set a limit on phone time for their kids.
Decreased socialization
Working from home greatly reduced my socializing bar a lot, as one would come only to fine me on my phone typing away. As an educator, there's a kind of bond that we form amongst ourselves, a closeness that makes us relate more like relatives rather than outsiders. I really missed that even though we tried comunicating online, it wasn't like the real thing.
Remote working has it's benefits and those it suits more. I believe each individual should stick to what works best for him or her, whether it's working at the office or at home..
Thanks for reading... shalom.