por Raquel Cunha | Junior Marketing Manager at Monday
The last two years have been marked by the rapid expansion of hybrid work, where employees can split their time between working at home, at the company or in an outdoor space. Many companies have been forced to adopt this regime between home office, office or cowork, or even dematerialize their offices, changing the way companies and employees relate to each other. Despite this, some companies are one step ahead and have fully embraced the Work From Anywhere (WFA) concept thus recognizing that their employees can work from anywhere as long as they have Internet access.
The growth of these flexible workspaces helps explain the rise of digital nomads. For many the concept may be unfamiliar, but increasingly it is a practice and a lifestyle used by many people around the world. These are people who travel and work remotely from anywhere as long as they have access to a computer and Wi-Fi. Being a digital nomad is not just a way of working, it is a modern lifestyle that includes the freedom and flexibility to work the way we want.
Some people enjoy the advantage of being able to travel and explore the local culture while doing their work; some people prefer to stay at home, or some people like to hang out at their favorite coffee shop.
According to the Global Migration Trends Report 2022, there are currently about 35 million digital nomads in the world. The expectation is that by 2035, the number will reach 1 billion.
Benefits and Challenges of Hybrid Working: The Monday Team Experience
Benefits of Hybrid Working
There are quite a few advantages and challenges when we talk about hybrid work. We asked some of Monday’s colleagues what their opinions were about this model:
- Higher productivity — Being at home or anywhere (in the world) different from the office can bring higher productivity. A new work environment motivates us to be more productive and efficient.
“The big advantage is being able to work wherever I want, whether at home or at the library and making my own schedule”
Mariana Wang, UX/UI Designer
2. More innovative ideas — Creativity happens when we mix seemingly unrelated concepts together to form a new idea. Working in a different place every day and meeting new people offers many diverse experiences that can enhance our creativity.
3. Flexibility and Autonomy — Working in different places needs us to be adaptable to the various environments we are in. We are also more autonomous since we are in control of our work environment. We can be working anywhere in the world, which gives us the advantage of getting to know new places, cultures and having enriching experiences that otherwise, would not be possible.
“What I like best about remote work is the flexibility of being able to combine personal life with work. I used to lose hours in traffic. I can support my parents at home and help them. I can go visit my family up the north and work anywhere.”
Margarida Silva, Business & Service Designer
4. Time control and work management — As I usually say, we should work to live and not live to work. And nowadays it is increasingly important to have a balance between personal and professional life. In this approach we are more efficient, we save time in commuting, and we gain time to do things we enjoy like hobbies or being with the family.
“My personal and professional life has become more balanced thanks to the flexibility of remote work. I can be closer to my family”
Margarida Costa, Head of Marketing
5. Reduction of stress and increase of well-being — Not running from one place to another, not hitting traffic and having the power to control our schedule increases our well-being in all aspects; by spending more time at home, we may find it easier to maintain a healthy diet and exercise, because it becomes easier to fit these moments into our work routine.
“I used to spend four hours a day on public transport. By working from home, the stress has decreased dramatically”
Ana Rocha, UX/UI Designer
Challenges of Digital Nomadism and Hybrid Work
This lifestyle brings many benefits, but despite this, it still presents some challenges.
The main one is the reduction of social ties, because with travel or home office, we may become isolated from our friends and family, and especially from colleagues. The social life reduction can lead to lower levels of personal satisfaction, damaging the sense of belonging and connection:
“The biggest disadvantage of remote work is the human factor, we are not with our coworkers as often. There’s less closeness with colleagues with whom you don’t have projects in common”
Margarida Silva, Business & Service Designer
It can also be expensive to travel regularly — anyone who wants to be a digital nomad and travel constantly has to be prepared for some extra expenses. But in my opinion the experience is worth the investment!
Knowing how to unplug is very important — by being connected all the time, we can tend to always be checking emails or doing work late. It is important to have discipline and control over our schedule, so that we have a good balance between our personal and professional lives.
“One disadvantage is that we end up working more than we should”
Mariana Wang, UX/UI Designer
Time zones can also complicate our daily lives. If we are working in another country there may be a large time difference, which can affect our working hours and consequently our income.
“With remote work we tend to be more sedentary as we are always in the same place”
Mariana Wang, UX/UI Designer
Monday: a full hybrid working experience
Even before the pandemic, Monday had already set a day a week of our choice to do home office and therefore there was already an openness to this mindset of flexibility for hybrid work.
Currently, Monday has taken the home office to 100%, while maintaining the company’s rituals such as monthly face-to-face status, meetings, workshops and training in coworking spaces or outdoors. The team has the most diverse tastes, because while some prefer to be at home, others prefer to be in coworking spaces and we even have colleagues who occasionally work abroad.
At Monday, we signed up for the service of Croissant, an app that provides a list of coworking spaces in several countries and in which we can work independently or in groups.
With this resource, Monday makes its teams happier and more productive through flexible access to workspaces around the world.
After the pandemic, companies realized that they could continue with this regime and are increasingly betting on flexibility, productivity and well-being of workers. It is up to each company and each worker to adapt in the best way, taking into account their own reality and context.
In my opinion, being able to work remotely and make our own schedule brings a range of very positive advantages, mainly flexibility and balance between personal and professional life. However, you have to take into consideration that you can’t exactly do “whatever you feel like”.
The key is to have an increased sense of responsibility and discipline, knowing how to adapt in order to be productive. With this we will be able to separate the moments of work and leisure and enjoy life more, because it is to be (well) lived.
Thanks for reading
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Monday is a Business Design Consultancy based in sunny Lisbon. We co-create with ambitious leaders to build better businesses. We use strategy & design to transform businesses from within.
This core philosophy stands at the center of everything we create. Clients include: Mercedes, EDP, Banco de Portugal, Microsoft, Jogos Santa Casa, CUF, Sumol+Compal, Fujitsu, Galp, among others.
Raquel Cunha
Junior Marketing Manager @ Monday
