Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of working remotely. While remote work offers flexibility and the comfort of home, it also comes with unexpected expenses and challenges. Working from home, which took off exponentially during the global pandemic in 2020, can mean increased utility bills, blurred boundaries between work and personal life, and more.
Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of working remotely. While remote work offers flexibility and the comfort of home, it also comes with unexpected expenses and challenges. Working from home, which took off exponentially during the global pandemic in 2020, can mean increased utility bills, blurred boundaries between work and personal life, and more.
Main Topics
00:00 Introduction
01:06 Running the Numbers Segment
03:14 Personal Experiences with Remote Work
13:46 Challenges and Downsides
19:01 Technological and Ergonomic Considerations
23:39 Social and Professional Costs
26:56 Work Life Balance
29:58 Hybrid Work Models
32:35 Work Culture and Team Building
36:41 Geographic Flexibility
46:21 20 Cents Segment
References for Statistics
https://www.uscareerinstitute.edu/blog/50-eye-opening-remote-work-statistics-for-2024
https://data.yelp.com/remote-work-report-2024
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/37-9-percent-of-advanced-degree-holders-teleworked-in-october-2023.htm
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/
Lizzy: The US Career Institute says that remote workers in the US save an average of 55 minutes every day by not having to commute to work.
Lissa: Yeah, that's a-
Lizzy: Hell of time.
Lissa: That's a lot of time saved.
Lizzy: So is working remotely worth it? Let's talk about it.
Lissa: Welcome to Net Net with Lizzy and Lissa, where we analyze hidden costs and empower you to make your own damn decisions in life. Each episode covers a different facet of life, and at the end of each episode, we each give our takes on whether we think something is net positive or net negative.
Lizzy: I'm Lizzy, a strategist and consultant with almost 20 years of experience in finance and investing.
Lissa: And I'm Lissa, a personal finance expert and accredited financial counselor. We're best friends who talk about money.
Lizzy: And everything else.
Lissa: So is working remotely worth it?
Lizzy: First up, running the numbers on remote work.
Lissa: Forbes Advisor reports that 16% of US companies are now fully remote.
Lizzy: All right. That's actually a little lower than I would've thought, given the pandemic.
Lissa: Really? I thought it was a little high.
Lizzy: Really? Maybe I'm biased.
Lissa: I guess there's a lot of small businesses too where it's, yeah, easier to be fully remote.
Lizzy: Okay. Makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: Okay. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about one in five employed people aged 25 and over has worked remote at least some of the time in October, 2023.
Lissa: The US Career Institute says over 95% of workers want some form of working from home.
Lizzy: All right, so everybody wants it, but only a fraction are getting it.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: Okay. The US Career Institute also says that 63% of surveyed people said that having remote work is one of the most important aspects of a job. It ranks above salary, having a good boss, having a healthy company culture, and several other factors.
Lissa: So people care about it even more than what they're getting paid.
Lizzy: Damn. This is important.
Lissa: Yeah. In 2023, Yelp, which is a company that is committed to fully remote work, they saw a 183% year-over-year increase in the views to their Yelp careers page.
Lizzy: Wow.
Lissa: So people looking for a job at Yelp. So even though this is just one company, it seems like people are seeking out jobs that have remote work as a component.
Lizzy: Oh absolutely, yeah. We know how jobs seekers and employees feel, but what about executives? OpenVPN says that 73% of executives in IT believe that remote workers pose a greater risk than on-site employees.
Lissa: Well, I believe it. IT, it's like security, cyber security.
Lizzy: Yeah, for sure.
Lissa: Yeah. Well, we know there's more to life than numbers and statistics, so let's talk about it. Remote work.
Lizzy: Remote work.
Lissa: Is it worth it?
Lizzy: All right. Talk to me about your history with working remotely.
Lissa: Right, because it's very different from yours.
Lizzy: Yes.
Lissa: I only started working remotely since the pandemic. I want to say before that, there wasn't really an opportunity in any of the jobs that I worked in my adulthood that allowed me to be at home at all. I think it was always in the office or when I used to work even retail when I was in college, it was always I physically had to be somewhere.
Lizzy: Interesting. So what was that transition like for you when the pandemic hit?
Lissa: Well, obviously it was with mixed feelings because when the pandemic hit just in general, we all were scared. We didn't know what was going on. It was confusing. That aside, the benefit of, "All right, now I get to be at home, I don't have to worry about dog care for the dogs. I don't got to commute. I can sleep in a little later." All these added benefits to working from home instead of going to an office were nice. I'm not going to lie.
Lizzy: I feel like your experience is probably similar to a lot of people that had worked in an office for most of their career and then had that really swift transition with all of this other stuff mixed in there. So there's this fear, you're socially isolated. So that kind of mixes up into your experience with remote work and kind of colors your perspective on it, I think.
Lissa: Yeah, also when that all happened, I happened to be one year into living into my new place that has just extra space. I have an extra office space that's separate from my bedroom, separate from the living room. I have a whole dedicated space. And I know that was a tough thing for some people in the pandemic is not having the space for your remote work, like your office.
Lizzy: So I have a kind of funny point on that. My experience with remote work is very different. So I have worked remote most of my life. My very first professional job I started when I was 18 and I worked in an office a few days a week and then remote part of that time because we were just a small team and so it was very flexible. Then I studied abroad and I worked remote. I moved away and went to grad school and worked remote.
Lissa: All for that same company?
Lizzy: For that same company. There were different spurts where we had an office, but it's an expense, an overhead expense for such a small team. And at a certain point, our second employee, she just got so comfortable with working remote that she never came in. Maybe once a year we'd see her. So it became an option. So there were several years at that company where we were remote and even when we did come into the office I could be like, "Hey, I'm not coming in today."
Lissa: But there was always an office?
Lizzy: Not always.
Lissa: Okay.
Lizzy: There was often an office. Our very first office was an ADU in the back of my boss's house.
Lissa: Oh, got it.
Lizzy: So it's been very flexible. And then I did work in the office for a company in Irvine, but only several days a week because I was commuting, and so from LA to Irvine. And so I think three days a week I would come in and then even when I moved down to Irvine, it was pretty flexible.
Lissa: Got it.
Lizzy: So we always had some remote work. And then I left and have worked for myself or as a part of a founding team ever since that's always been remote.
Lissa: So you've never had to be in an office five days out of the week every week?
Lizzy: I have, I guess, but for short spurts of time and it was always a pretty flexible environment where I, for the most part, made my own schedule. I've never had a clock in, clock out since I worked at Carl's. Jr. when I was in high school. Not in a professional environment.
Lissa: Got it.
Lizzy: And yeah, even when I did work in the office five days a week, it was kind of come in when I want.
Lissa: Okay.
Lizzy: So definitely different.
Lissa: Must be nice.
Lizzy: Yeah, very. But the interesting thing though, I have almost never had a dedicated workspace in my home. Even though I've worked remote all of this time. Only when I was in grad school and it was because I had this sad little row house that had a basement. It was the sketchiest fucking basement, you guys. Oh my God. There was no actual floor. It was wood boards.
Lissa: That you could fall into?
Lizzy: It wasn't like that, but there was no covering. It was like the-
Lissa: Right. Nails and stuff, oh man.
Lizzy: Yeah. It was so sketchy. It was like dank and whatever. But I had my office down there and I was so isolated.
Lissa: Hope you have tetanus shot.
Lizzy: I would work like 18 hours in this dark little basement. It was so sketchy.
Lissa: Oh my gosh. No air circulation?
Lizzy: Yeah, man, it was rough. But even now or during the pandemic when I was cohabitating with a partner, that was a challenge for us of like, "Okay, now we're both working remote. We don't have any room for either of us to have a workspace. You take the bed, I take the couch and then we switch."
Lissa: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, that's so weird how opposite we are in our experiences.
Lizzy: I know, huh?
Lissa: With just work culture in office, out of office.
Lizzy: I think part of that though is that I've mostly worked for very small companies, startups and smaller teams and you've worked for mostly pretty big companies. And I think remote work in a big business is really challenging. We kind of touched on this on a prior episode on quiet vacationing, but you get some slippage, right? So while for some people they're going to be more productive, for some people that aren't being watched like a hawk, they're going to start to slip, their performance slips, their engagement slips, and when you have thousands of employees, the effect of that is a lot bigger than when you have five.
Lissa: Right. Yeah, so my first job, full-time role out of college, out of grad school was at Fox Sports. So the broadcasting network. And I don't think my particular role needed to be in office. It was computer work, it was contracts, it was calling people. For the extent that you got to be with your colleagues and to ask someone a quick question, go to their desk and ask them a question. That was probably the biggest benefit. And obviously team meetings are different when you're in person. But outside of that, that particular role of mine didn't need to be there. There were other departments that obviously they filmed shows and had productions on the studio lot, so it was like those are things you have to be there for. But my particular role didn't. But-
Lizzy: It was different time though.
Lissa: It was different times.
Lizzy: It was very different time.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: And even not just in the sense of it was pre-pandemic, it was a very different time on the internet. The awareness, Zoom. I mean when I was first working remote, I started this company in 2007, I think, so Zoom wasn't a thing. We used Skype. We didn't even use Skype video.
Lissa: Oh right.
Lizzy: We used Skype messaging.
Lissa: You know what? Now that I think about it, it was like-
Lizzy: And we used AIM.
Lissa: And yeah, it was like conference calls, not video.
Lizzy: Yeah, calls. We didn't have video. It's kind of funny because I recently reconnected with a guy who was a client of ours way back in the day starting in 2007. And we were hopping on a Google Meet meeting and I realized, "I don't know if he knows what I look like." Because we worked with each other for years, but there was no video meetings.
Lissa: Yeah. Interesting.
Lizzy: It was just a different time, you know?
Lissa: That's interesting too because then after Fox, most of my career where I worked corporate was spent at Google and that was always in office. And Google had a very open team culture, so it was like unless you were one of the top execs, no one had their own office, it was like an open workspace. So I'd say we were just all so used to always seeing each other in that way that I... And the thing was though, we had global teams and obviously we used Google Meet for all of our meetings.
Lizzy: Of course, yeah.
Lissa: But something interesting that it made me think of was Zoom, like, man, if you had invested in Zoom pre-pandemic, wild. But Google Meet, we used to use that all the time for meetings, especially with all our counterparts in other places, in other geographies. But Google Meet didn't have that many features, it worked, until pandemic happened and all of a sudden they started working on those features and now it works just as great as-
Lizzy: Right. Now I prefer it.
Lissa: Over Zoom?
Lizzy: Yeah, I use it instead of Zoom.
Lissa: And it's free.
Lizzy: One, because it's free, yeah.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: But also it's more seamless for me. I don't know if it's the same for people that don't use G Suite, so for clients and stuff. But I prefer it. I use it. And we have both in our company, but I use G-
Lissa: Which just to go down this Google rabbit hole a little bit more. Something I always appreciated at Google, because prior to working at Google where I worked, we used used Microsoft Office Suite and that was like, oh, we did email and stuff and obviously used Microsoft Word and all that. Okay, now they have Teams and all this collaborative work stuff, but before they didn't. So when I moved from that world to the Google world where you can collaborate on a document and work on it at the same time-
Lizzy: Transformative.
Lissa: Right?
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: In that stuff, I think Google was ahead of its time and things like that. And now there's so many digital online work spaces where you can run companies, even small businesses, where you can run companies from anywhere because there's project management software, there's collaborative software, it's all in the cloud.
Lizzy: Absolutely. And I don't think this remote work environment we have today would exist without all of those technological innovations. Yeah, it's a game-changer. I am navigating now, I'm so almost native to Google Docs, Google Sheets, Drive, everything. And several of my co-workers have always used Outlook and all that. And trying to educate them and shift their mindset of like, "This is all cloud-based, everything is shared, everything's collaborative," it's an uphill battle.
Lissa: Outlook is what I meant to say earlier.
Lizzy: I got you. I got you.
Lissa: I've like erased it from my memory because-
Lizzy: I know because I hated it.
Lissa: Yeah. But okay, so what are the costs? Let's talk about the costs of working remotely.
Lizzy: Yeah, so I think there's been interesting studies, some show that workers are more productive and certainly more satisfied and there's correlation between satisfaction and engagement and productivity. But I think the obvious cost hypothetically that you might presume is that people are fucking around.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: They're not as engaged, they're not working as much.
Lissa: But sometimes it's not intentionally. Sometimes it's they're less able to focus because they have kids or there's animals around and there's people ringing the doorbell, there's gardeners outside.
Lizzy: For sure.
Lissa: There's distractions.
Lizzy: For sure. And that's why I think a lot of employers don't like it, or some will be adamant, "You cannot work remote if you have kids at home," right? They'll try to enforce things like that. I actually found in the beginning the opposite. Because I hadn't worked in a big corporate environment, back when I was in that basement office, I was so conscientious about any time I stepped away for 10 minutes to go switch my laundry or take a break, that I overworked. And I think that's a common thing too. You bring your work home with you, there aren't a lot of boundaries. You're checking email all the time. I would sit on the couch in the evening because I'm like, "All right, nothing else to do, might as well." So I think that can go both ways.
Lissa: Yeah. So I don't know, maybe they gave us guidance or maybe this was around the time of my own self-awareness, mindfulness journey, but once I started working remotely, I made it a point to do all the things they said, which were have a clear start and end time to your day. Have a dedicated area or dedicated areas for work. Don't bring it to the couch or to your bed or whatever. Which is interesting because when I didn't work remote, this was pre-pandemic and I worked overtime and I worked at home, I would do that, I'd work all over the place. But when it came to the pandemic, I did my best to stay in one area unless I was like I really wanted to go fold my laundry at the same time or something.
Lizzy: Right, yeah. So that's interesting that it was easier for you. I think because I was earlier in the game, it was a challenge. And then it wasn't until later that I did work in a more corporate environment and I realized people are fucking around when they're in the office. A lot of time is wasted. That's not an excuse, but I gave myself a little more grace of I know what I'm getting done. And over time my mindset shifted of it's not about time, it's about value and what you're accomplishing.
Lissa: So productivity can be a cost because of distractions or because people fuck around.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Something else that I just thought of as a big cost, well, I guess you can have this in the office too, but ergonomics.
Lizzy: Yeah, for sure. Are you in a healthy environment physically for working?
Lissa: Yeah, is your computer chair at home, your desk, your lighting, the same as an office environment where they've put some thought into how-
Lizzy: I think that assumes they've put some thought into it.
Lissa: Okay. Okay, I worked at Google-
Lizzy: I do think you're a little biased because you worked at Google.
Lissa: You're right, you're right.
Lizzy: Yeah, I think that's a unique experience. And it's interesting places like Google, I think Google is kind of the trendsetter in this, put so much effort and money into their offices and the experience in their office, free meals for employees and stuff-
Lissa: Okay, I know I'm spoiled.
Lizzy: ... to keep them there more.
Lissa: Right.
Lizzy: So it's almost the opposite extreme. But that is a fair point because working on the couch, working from your bed, not good for your body.
Lissa: Well, I remember when we went to working from home during 2020, they gave us each a budget where we could buy, I don't know, I can't remember the number, maybe $1,500, where we could buy home office equipment, anything from a desk to lighting to space heaters to mouse pads, anything that we wanted or needed for our work area. And I thought that was really cool.
Lizzy: No, it is. I don't think that's typical. Or maybe certainly that amount. I think there's probably some kind of budget in a lot of companies, but definitely not that much.
Lissa: All right, so with the assumption that an office space is meant for working, at least have computer chairs and things like that, right?
Lizzy: Sure, yeah.
Lissa: I guess that's why I saw it as maybe a cost at home if you don't have those things.
Lizzy: Agreed. No, agreed. And I also think just getting up in the office, get up to go to a meeting, get up to chat with a coworker, I think it's easier to be sedentary potentially when you're by yourself and you're working at home.
Lissa: Yeah, that's true.
Lizzy: Oh shit [inaudible 00:19:03].
Lissa: Internet connection is another one.
Lizzy: Internet connection.
Lissa: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I used to struggle so much with these home internet companies because every time I moved into new place internet would be cool and then all of a sudden it'd be spotty and it's like I'm already paying for the highest package to get the most bandwidth and I'm like, "What else can I do? How do I get commercial grade internet?" And during the pandemic, I think a lot of people faced that, but I had that too where it was like, "We're trying to work from home but we're getting dropped off of these video calls because our home internet is not good enough."
Lizzy: For real. I've had that experience as well. Two specific examples. One was trying to download this massive data set, it was like 52 gigs or something, and it just didn't happen on my home internet. It was never going to happen. And at the time I did use a coworking place, so I would have to do that there, or at certain points, and this is something I had to do every month to update this data set, this was just a couple of years ago. And so eventually I had to ask someone else on my team to do it because it just didn't work.
But another one is more recently I went and was visiting with someone up in a remote area of Northern California and they had wifi and it might as well have been non-existent. I was there for a week and so I was under the assumption I was going to be able to work as usual, that was not the case. So I would have to go and drive to the park and just use my cell to join calls. But then I wasn't on video because I was sitting in my car.
I made it work, but it definitely didn't feel great, like I was being as professional as possible. Which I think is an interesting maybe cost or at least shift is what professionalism means when you're working remote. You previously in an office environment might've had a certain dress code, sometimes that shifted when you went remote. Or did it really? Are you business on top and sweatpants on the bottom? You got to see a glimpse into people's homes, all of these different elements, the distractions, you hear the dog in the background. I know everyone of my co-workers who has a dog now, I never would've known that before. So I don't know if that's a cost necessarily.
Lissa: I could be both a benefit and a cost. It's more-
Lizzy: Yeah, but definitely a shift. I think another cost for businesses or also a shift is in the type of overhead. So investing in this technology, in these software and services that enable this kind of collaboration. But that's different than paying for office space. So I think it's a net benefit to not have to pay for a physical office, which can be very expensive if they have a full-time remote policy. But you're paying for other things to facilitate collaboration.
Lissa: For the company.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: But I guess a con, like we mentioned in the statistics earlier, the IT stuff like cyber security-
Lizzy: For sure.
Lissa: I guess it depends on your industry and how confidential your information is. But yeah, there's a lot of hackers out there who if you're on the wrong internet connection, they can get into your stuff. And so I feel like that's... Obviously that's not a financial cost. You're weighing the financial cost of not having an office with these other risks I guess to your business.
Lizzy: Yeah. And it depends on how the business is set up. So thinking in the financial services industry where there is a lot of importance placed on security of personal information as well as regulation and documenting, a lot of that when I was in the office was digital anyway. But there are additional things that have to be implemented to make networks and your own computer secure. And then there's a lot of are people using their work computer for personal use? I think there's a lot of overlap when usually you're not supposed to. So that's just kind of another element of it.
Lissa: Yeah, I mean it could just be as simple as someone in your household seeing over your shoulder of what you're working on, proprietary information.
Lizzy: Sure.
Lissa: But I mean most times they're not going to be able to do anything with that material. But that's still-
Lizzy: It is. Definitely.
Lissa: ... a major risk, yeah.
Lizzy: I think the biggest cost that I have experienced is, I guess maybe it's a social cost, but more kind of an executional cost at work of there is absolutely a benefit to being able to look over your shoulder and be like, "Hey, what do you think of this?" Or to brainstorm collaboratively in the moment. And of all my years of working remote, it has never once been the same. Doing it on the phone or in a video conference, it just can't be replicated to me that experience of being there live in an office.
Lissa: Yeah, what do they call it? The water cooler back in the day?
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: But well, what I was alluding to earlier, my first job at Fox is like, yeah, could have done that job from home. It was contracts, it was administrative stuff. But literally me and my cubicle mate, my neighbor literally just to mess around with each other would be throwing candy wrappers at each other to kind of break up the day, break up the monotony. But still get our work done. But have that comradery in a sense that you don't really get when you're just... I mean you can get that pinging people, but it's not the same.
Lizzy: It's not the same, especially if you don't start out meeting in person. If you're only digital, that can be really hard to build. And there's a couple of costs to it. One is just that social comradery, that engagement, that feeling of liking the people you work with, which is huge, but that also makes it harder to trust the people you work with.
Lissa: Yeah, yes.
Lizzy: And that can work its way into actual work conflicts. You don't have that baseline, the same respect and amiability with each other that you might have in the office. It's also twitter fingers, like you're protected by not having to see them in person. And then I think there's a creativity innovation aspect as well. It's just harder. You're more isolated, you're more in a silo, so it's harder to get cross-functional collaboration and innovation. You almost have to plan it and that's just not the same. Brainstorming organically in a quick chat versus let's plan a meeting and we all chime in, we're all talking at once and it's hard to replicate.
Lissa: Yeah. Well, I had a friend this past week just go to a team off-site. She works remotely from her team. And it's interesting because I mean I think I had the benefit of having in-office work plus things like off-sites where off-sites are... I don't know, how would you call them?
Lizzy: Kind of like a retreat.
Lissa: A retreat or internal company thing where you guys are just not at your-
Lizzy: Almost like an internal conference.
Lissa: Right.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Just somewhere away from your office where you could be doing work stuff, but you could also be doing team building stuff.
Lizzy: Team building, yeah.
Lissa: So I had the benefit of that a lot of my years at Google and ended up becoming really, really close friends with so many different coworkers because I had that. And I just feel like now, so my fiance. Alan, he also works remotely from his job, his team is based on the East Coast. He's the only person on the West Coast and he works from home, and so he actually misses that. For the same reasons you said, both from an executional perspective of getting work done and building trust with coworkers, but also feeling connected. All those things you lose when you're remote. So then it becomes you're weighing that with the benefit of being able to cook your lunch at home at your lunch break or being able to just walk your dogs and not have to pay extra for a dog sitter.
Lizzy: For sure. For me it was to do laundry, that was the biggest one.
Lissa: Laundry?
Lizzy: I could have it going in the background and just switch my laundry between meetings. That I was always my favorite thing.
Lissa: Yeah, because if you're never home and when do you do your laundry?
Lizzy: For sure.
Lissa: Yeah, you take it to a fluff and fold, but then you're paying more. You're working-
Lizzy: Trust me, I did that. I did it for years while I was commuting.
Lissa: Yeah, you work all these hours because you have no time to do your chores, so you outsource some of your chores. I don't think there's anything wrong with outsourcing chores. I'm an outsourcer, but-
Lizzy: But trade-offs.
Lissa: Yeah, it's trade-offs at the end of the day.
Lizzy: Okay, the biggest cost for me that it took me years and years to realize is the structure of going to an office. So I've probably talked about this before, but I worked remote for so long and at least I had people that I was checking in with in the morning. I had this kind of external team. It wasn't until I left my job, which had been about a year of being in the office most days, and so all at once left that job and was just me, self-employed. And the lack of structure plus the pandemic all at the same time really, really became challenging and highlighted for me the fact that I have ADHD and it was just tough. It became this really difficult period in my life. It was really hard to focus.
And so for me, there's nothing that replicates getting up, putting on real clothes, going somewhere else, spending a day in a focused environment that is dedicated only to work and then coming home to my home that is only for home. So for several years after I recognized this, I would do a co-working space where I still had the flexibility, but this is where I work and this is where I'm at home. And that is probably my preference now. I don't have that right now and it's definitely challenging.
Lissa: Is it one of these situations where the grass is always greener on the other side?
Lizzy: I think it's like moderation. That's kind of where I land. I don't think I prefer all of one or all of the other. And I've been fortunate to have those situations where I get to have a mix of both. But yeah, there's definitely pros and cons.
Lissa: Yeah. Well, which is why some companies are using a hybrid model.
Lizzy: Yeah. And that can be... I know a lot of companies that they only go into the office Tuesdays and Thursdays or something like that, or it may be individual. So I had on my team actually, it was a benefit that I got to kind of dole out to team members, if they were a really high performer, they might say, "Hey, can I work from home on Fridays?" And I'd be like, "Yeah, sure, why not?" I worked from home most Fridays in my last office job. And so there's kind of that perk where you get some flexibility. And there's different ways that it operates and it can potentially save some expenses for the business and balance those different things out. What are your thoughts?
Lissa: Yeah, I think it's a cool model. I was leaving my corporate job, so I think they were incorporating a new hybrid model or thinking about it or talking about it as I was on the outs. So after the pandemic, I never went back into the office. And so I've been working from home ever since for myself now. But I do like that different companies are playing around with different models because there's obviously pros and cons. And I think, what was the stat, 95% of people would like some type of remote work option? That doesn't mean 95% of people want fully remote work all the time.
Lizzy: For sure.
Lissa: But the option, so that they don't have to think about being in the office 40, 50, 60 hours a week every week their entire lives. So I like that they're thinking about different ways to do it. But something that came up when they first started discussing it was, "Okay, do we do Tuesdays, Thursdays in office and then work from home the other days?" Or if you let people individually work from home, it kind of defeats the purpose of the camaraderie part of it.
Lizzy: Yeah, depending on how many people and the days they choose, right?
Lissa: Depending on how many people, yeah, the days they choose. If it was me and if it was a company like Google, cool, I would like to go into work so I could eat free lunch.
Lizzy: Sure, yeah.
Lissa: Or they also had a nice gym there. Those are things I would've liked to go in for.
Lizzy: Which is the purpose of those benefits, they want you there.
Lissa: Right. So I could see why you said earlier from a company perspective, now you don't have to give as much of these benefits. You're weighing the cost.
Lizzy: Yeah, even something as simple as electricity, right?
Lissa: Yeah. Something related to that too that I think is a major cost, and I don't know who this negatively impacts more, the employee or the employer or both, but culture, work culture. So something that I used to do... And again, I know this is unique and I'm biased, I'm wearing one of my old YouTube shirts, I used to work at YouTube, Google owns YouTube. But we used to make YouTube videos in the office. Not every day or anything, but when there would be an off-site or a big team meeting or a team conference or there would be a yearly video contest where every team at the company would submit a video according to a prompt. We would be filming videos in the YouTube space, in the office. And it was so fun. It was just an extra perk of the job.
You could say that it was more work, but it definitely made me feel more connected to co-workers as friends who I'm still friends with now outside of work, but also connected for the same reason you said, it's easier to work with people that you like because you know that if you need something from them, you need a lawyer to review your contract, you know that they'll be on top of it because they respect you, you respect them, versus someone you don't know at all, you've never met. So it's so easy for them to be like, "I'm not going to do that this week. It'll take me two weeks and I'll get it back to you."
Lizzy: For sure. Yeah.
Lissa: Right? So there's a lot of those trade-offs. And there's politics, it's work. I used to hate hearing about work politics and things like that and how it's a game that you have to navigate. But played right it's not that bad. There's actual benefit to true human connection-
Lizzy: Just relationships, just like anything else. And I think even though that particular example with YouTube is unique, things like that exist in all company cultures, even if it's just a birthday celebration or a-
Lissa: Yeah, a pizza party, whatever it is.
Lizzy: Yeah, or a holiday party or things like that that are a little moment to not be worker bees and just be humans and connect. And that's really hard to replicate outside of the office. Or to your point about off-sites or retreats, it becomes a huge expense. So instead of having this day to day, you're bringing people in from all over once and twice a year to meet in person and mingle and all of that.
Lissa: Yeah. It's as simple as when you're in person and if you and I, Liz, are both trying to talk at the same time and we're both about to just be like, "Oh, oh, oh. Right." Right?
Lizzy: It's the worst. And then there's a little lag in the video.
Lissa: So that can happen in person, sure. But that'll get resolved in half a second. When you're on Zoom and that keeps happening...
Lizzy: Yeah, it's so frustrating. Then you're just like, "Forget it, I'm done."
Lissa: So like that during a meeting. But I know, at least I've seen Alan do some of his meetings where some of it is meant to be team building. There are some meetings that are like, "All right, the whole team is on and let's do a quick icebreaker exercise." But you still have that lag and it's like awkward. And if someone's on mute, "Oh, you're on mute." It just takes away from the connection I think.
Lizzy: I also think we probably have more meetings
Lissa: Now that-
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: I think maybe it depends on the company and industry.
Lizzy: Yeah. It's just easy to be like, "Oh, let's just hop on real quick." And it's like, "No. I don't want to."
Lissa: No, "Yeah, no, let's not hop on."
Lizzy: "Let's not hop on."
Lissa: Yeah. Well to your point earlier, if it's a really quick question and you can just go to someone's desk or you see them, you both are having lunch and you walk by each other, you can ask the quick question. Otherwise you're like, "Hey, can I put time on your calendar?"
Lizzy: Right, yeah. Annoying.
Lissa: So very annoying. All right, so we talked a lot about various costs. What about the benefit, financial benefits?
Lizzy: Well, this isn't a financial one, but one that's top of mind for me, not me personally, but I was just thinking of, is the geographic benefits. So during the pandemic, for example, a lot of people were able to move out of the city to places they truly wanted to live. Maybe they felt they had a better quality of life, they were closer to family. They weren't bound to specific cities where their office was, and they're able to have a little bit more control over their life. And I think that also had maybe a ripple effect of less traffic in cities and just kind of shifted the dynamics of where people want to live. And I think that's a big benefit of remote work.
Lissa: That's what I thought until about this year, 2024. I felt like traffic just came right back.
Lizzy: Yeah, well that's LA. We're fucked.
Lissa: "Are people working from home? Why are there still so many cars out here?"
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: But no, that is a good point. If you guys haven't peeped our quiet vacationing episode, we talk a little bit more about when people kind of do remote stuff without telling their employer. But with this remote work, I do know of many people who, my fiance included, who are working remotely and they can work wherever and it's totally approved. I have a friend who works in Denver and who was kind of scared when the policies were changing to come back to office, but they kind of grandfathered some people in to stay as remote workers. So it's a good setup where the changes that they made during the pandemic, they can keep it if they wanted it. I know that's a privilege that not everyone has, but...
Lizzy: No, it's a big advantage.
Lissa: Yeah. So earlier I think you said 55 minutes on average saved on a commute, I guess it-
Lizzy: Or just time back.
Lissa: Or time back. Time back.
Lizzy: Oh yeah. No, no commute. Commute.
Lissa: From commute, okay.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: So time, you get a lot of time back if you don't have to drive or walk or use transportation to get to work.
Lizzy: That's huge, oh my god.
Lissa: And time is money. But time is not just money. That's more time to-
Lizzy: It's quality of life.
Lissa: Quality of life.
Lizzy: Not sitting in traffic for even one hour a day, 30 minutes each way, which is not a crazy commute, but God, that improves your life significantly.
Lissa: But in relation to what you say financially, you're not paying for gas, maybe you don't even need your car anymore.
Lizzy: Sure.
Lissa: You're not paying for a bus pass or whatever you use, or Uber.
Lizzy: Or you can live in a cheaper area that's maybe further out.
Lissa: Right.
Lizzy: Typically, if you're trying to live in the city, it's more congested, rent is higher or mortgages are higher. You can maybe own a home somewhere else because you don't have to then have a two hour commute or whatever that might be.
Lissa: Yeah, so I think there are cost savings on cost savings. One of my friends had to work at a university and had to pay for her own parking. And parking's not cheap at some colleges.
Lizzy: Not at all.
Lissa: Yeah, to where it's like that parking pass costs one hour of your work day.
Lizzy: For sure.
Lissa: Why do you have to pay for that parking pass?
Lizzy: For sure. Yeah. And then just having to deal with it.
Lissa: Yeah. So there's that. I guess we've been talking everything mostly on the individual level, a little bit on the company level, but do you think there's a benefit to society if more people don't have to commute or transport themselves to work?
Lizzy: I do. Yeah. I think it's part of a larger shift that we've seen culturally in re-examining capitalism and not necessarily completely rejecting it, but pushing for a little bit more balance and wellness and recognizing the connection between satisfaction, health and productivity. So even if you want to be a little bit sinister about it, it's actually beneficial to your bottom line for people to be happier and healthier. So I think it's part of that and contributes to a healthier culture and society overall, in my opinion.
Lissa: Yeah. I guess when I think of that, I agree with you completely. I just keep going back to our quiet vacationing episode where we talked a little bit more about there are downsides-
Lizzy: For sure.
Lissa: Even on a more societal level because I guess companies will succeed, I think companies will succeed a lot better if their employees have some loyalty and respect for the company. And I guess you could have that... Now that I'm changing my mind as I speak. I think you can have that when you have a fully remote company because your employees will want to be there.
Lizzy: I think it depends. I think it depends on the employee and the social mindset. So this is my own hypothesis. I think there are some employees who are going to feel grateful or be more loyal because they get the opportunity to have flexibility and among maybe other things, other benefits, and so they won't necessarily take that for granted. I think other people may feel entitled to that. And I also think there's a shift towards an anti-employer mindset, which I don't think is necessarily fair, especially for smaller businesses. So a lot of people are more like, "I'm going to get mine. I'm going to do what's best for me regardless." Which isn't necessarily wrong, but definitely doesn't promote loyalty. And that's a fine line. You don't want blind loyalty, but it has to be a symbiotic relationship.
Lissa: Yeah. This is a sidebar, but have you ever watched Severance or heard about the show on Apple TV?
Lizzy: I don't think so.
Lissa: Maybe not. Well, if anyone of you guys have seen it that are listening to this, I think that that is a great show to watch. I don't want to spoil it, but it has to do with work and then life outside of work. Yeah.
Lizzy: Interesting.
Lissa: Yeah, yeah.
Lizzy: Something you said made me think. There is also an element of the concept of remote work that is a privilege in and of itself. There are so many professions, especially more working-class professions and kind of hard labor professions that that's not even an option or a possibility.
Lissa: Right.
Lizzy: And so I am sure if there are listeners who are hearing that that applies to them, it's kind of a silly proposition anyway to be debated. Thinking of my dad who owns a construction business and some of his workers work seven days a week, physical labor. It's like, "Yeah, I wish I could. That's nice. That's silly." So I think we have to acknowledge that as well.
Lissa: Yeah. All right, one more stat that we didn't mention at the beginning was on what people are doing while they're working from home. Because you alluded to laundry a couple times. I mentioned being able to cook your own lunch at home. But the most common activity that Americans do while working from home is, what do you think?
Lizzy: Well, I see it right here so...
Lissa: BS-ing. But specifically, scrolling on social media.
Lizzy: Yeah, but I guess my counterpoint would be people do that at work too.
Lissa: True.
Lizzy: In my experience. I've never been in an office where people-
Lissa: You don't think it's easier to do when no one's watching, passing by your desk and-
Lizzy: It is, but I think people are going to do that regardless.
Lissa: I guess it depends on your jobs culture and your office culture.
Lizzy: Yeah, for sure.
Lissa: Because I've worked in some offices where no one would do it because if the boss comes by, we got to act like we're working. But then other places where it's like, "No, everyone respects you and knows you're going to get your work done, so who cares if you're checking social media?"
Lizzy: True. Interesting.
Lissa: But yeah, we mentioned that earlier, but that's a potential cost for the employer.
Lizzy: I just thought of another one, thinking of that kind of relationship with your boss. I think it can be harder for people to get mentorship or learn other skills or kind of extend beyond their own role if they're working remotely. It can change your dynamic with your boss or your supervisor, whoever you report to, and definitely I think make onboarding a lot more difficult. To jump into a team that's fully functional and remote is kind of a lot and not have hands-on training. And sometimes that comes with other costs of putting money into that training and all of those other ways to develop culture.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: Man, I had one and I cannot think of what it was.
Lissa: You can't think of it?
Lizzy: I know, it's going to bug me.
Lissa: I'm going to 20 Cents if you can't think of it.
Lizzy: I can't think of it. I had it and I like keep forgetting it.
Lissa: All right. 20 Cents?
Lizzy: 20 Cents.
Lissa: 20 Cents is the segment of the show where both Lizzy and myself, Lissa, each get 60 seconds to give our 2 cents on today's topic. Whether it is a net positive or a net negative on remote work. Where does 20 Cents come from?
Lizzy: Because you get the opinion of two dimes, y'all.
Lissa: Two dimes?
Lizzy: Two dimes.
Lissa: All right. Liz, you're up first. I think I know what you're going to say, but is remote work worth it?
Lizzy: All right, so I've worked remote most of my career. I am at a place though where I don't prefer being fully remote. Even though currently I am. I know that it's not the optimal situation for me. My real answer is a hybrid. I don't think all in or all out is the right way. I would prefer to be either in an office with flexibility or remote but have co-working, that's kind of my real answer. So I guess I will say net positive.
Lissa: Okay.
Lizzy: But y'all know what it really is.
Lissa: That's okay. Yeah. Net positive.
Lizzy: Net neutral.
Lissa: It could be nuanced, but you know on this show we have to give it a positive or a negative.
Lizzy: Yeah, we got to give one. Yeah, that's it. That's what I go. What about you?
Lissa: All right, net positive for you. All right, for me, net positive also because I don't know if this is just trauma from past days, but I feel like if I say negative on remote work that I'm going to have to be in the office five days a week every week. I don't want to commit to that. I want options. So that said, I will say even though I'm net positive on remote work, as a self-employed person too I've had to create spaces where I can be with people physically or even if it is a Zoom, meeting with other people and connecting with people, I have to go out of my way to do that. Mastermind groups, like in-person trainings and workshops and classes, I go to Toastmasters once a week, which is great in-person connection with people. So net positive on remote work. But it is tough. It can be tough.
Lizzy: Okay. I just remembered, I remembered.
Lissa: All right, go ahead. Cool.
Lizzy: My last cost is the social cost, not the cost of isolation, the effect on your relationship if you both work remote. It can be challenging. Sometimes y'all need space. Remember that. But the other thing is, it's funny that you say if you give a certain position, the opposite's going to happen. Because that's been happening to me, y'all. I keep telling you what I think about a certain topic on this episode-
Lissa: You do the opposite.
Lizzy: And then life happens and I go the exact opposite way.
Lissa: On your first note, so Alan and I, the way we set up our desks, we're kind of next to each other. And I rarely have meetings so we don't get in each other's way, so I'll just have my headphones on. But I used to always just blurt out stuff to him and I wouldn't know he's on a meeting. And he needs to focus on his job, he can't just answer my questions every hour. So I've had to learn to try to get his attention first or just wait until there's a moment. But we found these things, we haven't bought them yet, there's these lights you can buy on Amazon or somewhere where you can tap it where it says, "In a meeting," or, "On air."
Lizzy: Yeah, yeah.
Lissa: You're busy right now, and then turn it off when you're not.
Lizzy: Oh that's cute.
Lissa: Yeah, so we're thinking of getting that so we could actually see each other's status.
Lizzy: That's cute. Do you think you get more sick of each other being around each other all day? Or because you're not actually interacting much?
Lissa: Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah.
Lizzy: Okay. All right.
Lissa: Maybe he's sick of me, but I think it's fine.
Lizzy: All right.
Lissa: Yeah. Not at all.
Lizzy: Okay, okay.
Lissa: But all right. Well, we are both net positive on remote work, but this is what we think right now at this moment in time. Can't no one make that decision but you. What do you think is working remotely worth it?
Lizzy: Hit us up. Let us know what you think. DM us on Instagram. @netnetpodcast or email us at hi@netnetpodcast.com. And if you want to follow us individually, here's where you can find us.
Lissa: I'm @wealthforwomenofcolor on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
Lizzy: And you can Follow me @live_well_lizzy on Instagram and TikTok.
Lissa: All references, statistics and resources mentioned can be found in our show notes. This podcast is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and should not be constituted as financial advice. Remember to always do your own research, consult a professional as needed, and feel empowered to make your own damn decisions.