The Case for Remote Work
As the pandemic has forced many of us into our homes to work for months at a time, I think it is a great time to address the long term viability of remote work, especially for chronic illness patients. The traditional workplace is an unfriendly and unflexible place for people living with some chronic conditions. This forces many patients to take jobs that are less than what they are qualified for or to file for disability or unemployment altogether.
Patients want to work. They want successful careers just like their healthy counterparts, but the obstacles that their disease presents are too often not addressed with reasonable accommodations in the workplace. Patients are afraid to tell their employers or potential employers of their condition for fear of workplace discrimination. They are terrified of having to explain why they have so many more doctors’ appointments than their coworkers, and they are terrified of being fired for needing a little extra flexibility. Many desire to work remotely in order to be more productive overall, but the availability of professional, full time remote work can be scarce.
I work in a traditional office setting, but I am in a unique position. I have been working for my family’s business for the past 5 years, and I have a boss (my dad) that has been flexible and supportive all along my chronic illness journey. If I needed to take a sick day, he understood that on those days that I was too sick to focus on my work. He understood that resting on that day would help me get well faster to be more productive overall. If I asked to work from home in lieu of the office because I wasn’t feeling well, he allowed me to do so, knowing that my word that I was working that day was enough. If I had yet another doctor to see, I was easily allowed to go to my scheduled appointments with no hassle or guilt trip for an extra hour or so away from work that day. As long as my work was getting done, I was allowed to come and go as necessary for appointments, tests, treatment, etc. During all this time, I was still the top sales producer during several of my WORST months of illness, because I was granted the flexibility that I needed to both work and take reasonable accommodations. This is NOT how the vast majority of corporate America works, and many others that needed the same accommodations as me would have been fired or disciplined for missed time in the office, regardless of how productive they are. The traditional office workplace works for me, but it is a major struggle for many others that I know.
Employers are needlessly obsessed with employees clocking in and out of a physical office, despite recent research that remote workers are actually overall MORE productive than their counterparts. A 2019 Airtasker survey looked at the work habits of over 1,000 full time employees, with roughly half of those being remote workers. They found that the remote workers were more productive and lived overall healthier lifestyles due to their more flexible work environment. Remote workers worked 1.4 more days a month than office workers, accounting for roughly 3 weeks more of work a year. They wasted less of their day commuting, leaving them more time to exercise and cook healthy meals and leading to an overall healthier workforce. They were less likely to call in sick, because if they were mildly ill or if their children were home sick from school, they could still work from the comfort of their home.
Many of our companies have turned to remote work during stay home orders due to the global coronavirus pandemic to try to keep business flowing as much as possible. In many industries, this has lead to little or no interruption in what office employees are able to accomplish at home (and that is with their kids home from school at the same time!). Offices have benefited from lower overhead costs that come with having less employees physically present without experiencing a loss in productivity. Here’s what this has taught us: the most valuable employees aren’t simply the ones who take the least amount of time away from the office. The best candidates for a job may have a disability or chronic pain or an immune deficiency. They may not be able to physically be in an office every day, but they will still do a great job from their bed or their couch, if necessary. These workers have degrees and certifications and character traits that every employer looks for. They are used to overcoming obstacles and are not daunted by difficult tasks. Their biggest negative trait to an employer is their medical condition, and they are repeatedly penalized for it, intentionally or otherwise.
The availability of more full-time remote jobs, even after normal life resumes, would benefit businesses and the workforce alike by opening up job opportunities to other qualified candidates that previously may not have even been able to apply to those same jobs if they were in the traditional workplace. I understand that not every job can be done remotely, but why not leave the option available to work remotely when possible for the right candidate? We take a chance any time we hire a new employee, so why not take a reasonable chance on a qualified, chronically ill candidate? I think that we owe it to the hardworking and driven members of the chronic illness community to try to make these kind of reasonable accommodations that will help them be some of the best employees you may ever hire.
Chronically yours,
Jen
