Second place at WFH
As someone who has been a bit of an accidental pioneer when it comes to this working from home business, having worked from the house for quite a few years now – well, two houses, sometimes in the garage and now in the kitchen/living room – a continuous period broken only by a brief spell of a couple of days in the Mediateam offices in 2010ish, I am glad to see others starting to appreciate the benefits of remote working.
Of course, it’s so much easier for you now than it was back in those days of dial-up modem Internet access when I had to restrict the amount of time I spent on the web because of the damage to my phone bill and when it could take ages to download anything over 1MB. It’s fair to say that in those days Ireland was not really set up for home working. Not many places were, to be honest.
Look at us now. Number nine in the global rankings for best countries for remote work, according to new research from NordLayer. Sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it? Even more impressive is that Ireland was 29th last year. That’s quite a jump.
How did that happen?
Not necessarily because of our digital and physical infrastructure which, strangely, is probably one of the first things you’d consider when looking at a country’s performance in terms of remote working. But not Ireland, which ranks an unimpressive 27th in that regard. Maybe it’s Ireland’s ranking in the ‘social safety’ category – that is, the social and physical security aspects of working from home – that has played a significant part in elevating it so highly in the remote work standings. This category “combines the components of overall safety from crimes within a country with metrics evaluating equity and access to human rights”.
Sounds good, sounds like something Ireland would do well in. But maybe not spectacularly well. Turns out Ireland ranks 18th in this category. Not too shabby but still below its overall standing in the remote work index.
What about cyber safety? Ireland must be pretty good at providing the safe and secure digital environment required for remote work. It is. Fifteenth best, actually.
So what were the categories where Ireland performed in line with, or better than, its overall ranking? English language proficiency where, impressively, it actually beat the native English speakers in the UK to come top of the list. It was second in ‘legal measures’ and ‘social inclusiveness’ and eighth for ‘tourism attractiveness’ although quite what that has to do with remote working is not immediately apparent. Unless you’re thinking of running an Airbnb on the side, perhaps, in which case, given the stunning scenery in some of Ireland’s more remote places, you could understand how that would be a big boost.
One thing that could be contributing to the attractiveness of remote working in Ireland is that it’s probably a lot cheaper. Living in Dublin is, as with any city, more expensive than remote areas. And there’s also the increasingly remote prospect of finding somewhere to live in the capital that won’t bankrupt you in the process.
Still, we’ll take ninth. That’s seven places better than the US, eight places above South Korea and 10 above the UK.
One thing that did give me pause for thought when looking at the results, however, was the ‘economic safety’ category. According to NordLayer: “The concept of economic safety entails the various economic aspects of living and working in a particular country. It refers to the cost of living, healthcare access, ease of communication, and opportunities for quality free time.” Ireland came 14th. Anyone care to guess which country came top?
The United Kingdom.
Am I the only one who thinks the chances of anyone coming up with that answer are even more remote than working from Donegal?
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