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Updated March 23, 2023You’re reading an excerpt of The Holloway Guide to Remote Work, a book by Katie Wilde, Juan Pablo Buriticá, and over 50 other contributors. It is the most comprehensive resource on building, managing, and adapting to working with distributed teams. Purchase the book to support the author and the ad-free Holloway reading experience. You get instant digital access, 800 links and references, a library of tools for remote-friendly work, commentary and future updates, and a high-quality PDF download.
While the time- and cost-savings benefits are largely inherent to remote work, reaping the potential health-related benefits requires dedicated attention (from both the employee and their manager). One remote employee could use their extra time saved from commuting to go to the gym or for daily walks, while another could simply log more time in front of the computer. The same goes for mental health—you have more flexibility and time to take care of whatever helps you feel better, but remote workers commonly suffer from overworking and not being able to disconnect at the end of the day. (See Morale, Mental Health, and Burnout In Remote Teams and Personal Health for more in-depth coverage of this topic.)
People living outside urban technical hubs—especially in less economically developed areas—stand to gain significantly when it comes to how much they can earn.* Depending on a company’s compensation philosophy, a software engineer in Bogotá, Colombia could stand to make the same as someone in San Francisco, with a corresponding vast difference in how far that salary can go because of the lower costs of living. Even when companies adjust for local geographies, remote roles often still pay far more than anything someone could find in their own city.