Having It All – How Remote Work Offers Parents the Best of Both Worlds

The recent increase in remote working opportunities has brought much needed relief to parents around the country. In relationship with ever-changing technology enabling better connection, the working world has come to realize that not everyone needs to be in an office from 8-5 every weekday to accomplish a job. This realization has brought parents, especially mothers, much closer to “having it all” than ever before. Overscheduled moms and dads, who had been pushed to their capacity carrying both work and home life, can now continue their careers from the convenience of their kitchen table or reimagined spare rooms, allowing greater freedom to manage all those other things begging for their precious time and attention.

Clean the House, Clear the Mind

One of the biggest perks of remote work is the ability to keep up (or at least try to keep up) with the endless stream of household chores. Laundry that used to pile across the week can now be accomplished in smaller, more manageable loads throughout the work day. A quick vacuum or kitchen wipe-down replaces the stroll around the office you once took to stretch your legs. Your afternoon coffee break is now used to take the dog for a quick walk and clear your head; both your dog and your brain thank you.

Meal prep becomes easier, as well. Simple crockpot recipes come to the rescue on the busiest of days and no longer end up burnt to the edges when your afternoon meeting runs over. Being at home also allows for grocery pick-up or delivery during less busy hours, and scheduling repair technicians and household maintenance don’t require hours of PTO.

Surviving the Sickness Season

Remote work also means that parents don’t have to automatically burn a day of sick time because Junior has a fever. Day care and school policies prohibiting kids from attending with a runny nose deplete sick banks pretty quickly, but whether it’s a little sniffle or the full-blown flu, Junior needs somebody to stay home. Offering options for parents to work remotely helps people reserve their sick days for when they actually need them, like when that mild fever ends up in a puking rally (no one is getting work done when vomit comes to town). With work-from-home options, coworkers don’t have to worry about folks running out of sick days and heading back to share the air before all the germs have been flushed away either.

School Routines Are Less Than Routine

Any parent knows that school “routines” are a figment of the imagination. Yes, there is a standard start and end time Monday through Friday, but schools often run early release days in addition to scheduled half days and other closings for professional development. None of these account for the surprise cancellations for snow, extreme heat, power outages, or anxiety-inducing closures due to threat of danger, after which many of us keep our kids home a few extra days.

Spring break, holiday breaks, and long weekends that many employers do not recognize also detract from the normal routine, interrupting work days once again. Throw in parent/teacher conferences, holiday celebrations, sports practices and other extracurriculars, and the scheduling nightmare becomes unmanageable inside a traditional work day. Then, consider single parent households or families with limited support systems and the irregularity of a “school routine” compounds even further.

Flex Hours Allow Everyone to Succeed

With remote connection, hours can be flexed to more convenient or quieter times of the day, helping to combat all those anomalies in the school routine. Suzy had a half day, so three working hours can be pushed after bedtime. Trevor had an orchestra concert, so two hours of work were accomplished before Trevor even opened his sleepy eyes this morning. The freedom to choose which working hours best fit into your very individualized week is one of the greatest gifts of connecting from home. Even for hybrid positions, when employees are provided a choice in how to structure their time, better outcomes are found both at home and work.

Nix that Crazy Commute

And who misses that mind-numbing commute? No one. The average American commute is 26.6 minutes, a little less than an hour per day. For the standard employee, that equals five hours per week they could be spending on something better – picking their kids up from school, grocery shopping, editing that sales proposal one last time before pushing “send,” or kicking back to breathe for a second before the kids come running off the bus. For some people, a daily drive to the office adds 2 hours or more to their day, and when heavy traffic or weather creeps in, it can stretch even further than that. American workers are a nose-to-the-grindstone, dedicated lot who deserve a few of their hours back, hours that can bring a value-add to their day when they aren’t locked inside an antiquated idea of what a work day should look like.

Remote Work Offers an Instant Raise

Another huge benefit of this remote life – the cost savings. The amount of unnecessary spend added to each work day compiles when folks are employed outside the home. A coffee stop, gas, parking, increased auto repairs including tires, brakes, and oil changes, and that occasional (or not so occasional) lunch date with a friend – all of that takes time and money. Remote working, even just one or two days a week, keeps more cash in a worker’s wallet. It’s that simple.

In select communities throughout the U.S., remote workers are actually being incentivized to relocate, adding even more money to the equation. Cities like Noblesville, Indiana, currently offering a relocation package of $15,000, encourage professionals to consider life somewhere new. In doing so, these towns help movers make the most of their monthly paycheck with advantageous welcome packages and long-term low cost living which is a huge benefit for parents because kids are expensive!

At-Home Connection Increases Connection at Home

For working parents, “having it all” really just means having a job that also allows for a family. We want to make it to the soccer game and baseball practice. We would rather take our child to their weekly piano lesson than have the babysitter do it. We hope to chaperone a field trip and attend the Valentine’s Day party our kiddo has been telling us about for weeks. Most importantly, we want the very best version of ourselves to greet our children at the end of the work day.

To accomplish this, we need flexibility in our work week and an opportunity to tackle a few of those household to-do items in the hours our kids are at school. At-home employment opportunities have finally gotten more working parents closer to that fantasy we’ve always been promised – that we can have it all – without feeling like we are failing at every turn. With the opportunity to drive our careers from the comfort and convenience of our homes, we often provide that very best version of ourselves to our work, as well.