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Adjusting to the Telecommute Job Online Model

Connectivity is the key ingredient in telecommuting and moving your job online, which is not a problem for most metro areas, but for under-developed or outlying rural areas, this might be problematic. You may have the desire to work from home, but do you have the ability?

First, there are equipment requirements. If your employer does not supply you with the necessary equipment, you must have at least a phone, computer, and an Internet connection. Not having the tools necessary to telecommute will exclude you from the ability to work from home in the new world.

As this new home working environment emerges from the rubble of the COVID-19 pandemic, concessions may be made and subsidies offered by government agencies to expand service areas to include those hard-to-reach areas where little or no connectivity is problematic.

In metro areas and many communities, coworking establishments are springing up to enable those without adequate resources to share office space and equipment. This is a more than reasonable solution for expanding the abilities of those who do not have access to the minimum requirements for telecommuting.

Transportation to and from the co-working space is the next issue, but these coworking spaces will greatly reduce commute times and expenses for those who utilize these services which can act as a bridge for telecommuters with limited resources.

It will take time and effort to change the way we do business in the United States. While many Americans embrace the idea of working from home, there are others who are well adapted and prefer to conduct work from a corporate office. Some people prefer to keep a clear demarcation between work life and private life. Then there are workers who have become dependent on face to face interaction amidst the work environment and they find solace in this break away from home. These are the people who will find it less easy to convert to video chat and adapt to the telework environment.

As the world of work transforms, will staying at home cause more psychological stress on those who depend on corroborating and commiserating with coworkers for social stability and mental health support?

In our pre-pandemic society, dysfunctional families are rescued and are allowed to sustain themselves longer as family units because the family members are able to seek social interaction outside the home. This is important to maintain mental health and sanity in an otherwise difficult living situation.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, we have already seen the impact that basically being imprisoned or celled-in with at-risk family members has not fared well, as domestic abuse rates have skyrocketed. Increased rates of depression and suicide have indicated there is great concern with not being allowed to access what we have come to rely on as “normal” social interaction.

But keep in mind, that this is only temporary. Once the restrictions are lifted, the public will be able to resume all their normal social activities. The only difference being that telecommuting and working from home will become more of a valid option when looking to return to work if you’re not already telecommuting.

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New Telecommute World of Jobs Online

To ready yourself for the new world that is developing before our very eyes, it will require a major readjustment in the way you think about your work, job, and career. In the last 100 years, work was all about finding a way to get from your home to your work establishment to earn an income and return to your home, where you may enjoy some rest and relaxation.

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If you were like the growing majority of us, you may have found yourself shuttling between to or more jobs just to make the ends meet. Even with the raising of minimum wages across the USA, the minimum wage was not keeping up with inflation.

This meant we were working harder for less, and were exerting time, effort, and absorbing the expense of traveling to and from one or more work destinations to support our families.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which changed the way we do business in America. To survive the worst part of the pandemic those who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus lock-downs, they were granted unemployment wages, plus a government stipend to help mitigate the damages of the shutdown.

During the period of the lock-down, essential workers were allowed to continue to travel to and from work, while others were permitted to continue to work if they could transform their work into a telecommuting job, which meant they would have to find ways to perform their duties from home in order to retain their jobs.

Telecommuting or working from home is not as easy as it sounds it means having to adopt a new state of mind when it comes to how you think about “being home.” You must set aside some separate workspace where you conduct your work activities without being interrupted. If you live alone, no problem, you may be comfortable kicking back on the couch and working in your pajamas (if your work does not include some videoconferencing).

Otherwise, you need to set aside a dedicated space to conduct your work, which could be in a spare room if you have one, otherwise, you can carve space out of an existing space, like a corner of the living room or bedroom, where you can set up a pseudo-office space to work at from home.

This is the future:

Most of the American work will be done from home.

The biggest fear of businesses in the United States is that without the constant overseeing of employees, production numbers would drop. Employers feared that left to their own devices, without supervision, employees would goof off, watch TV, or spend hours surfing the Internet instead of working.

This is what held back most employers from even considering making the shift from the office to telecommuting. When the coronavirus threat all but shut down American business, the only hope for survival was to hope that being able to telecommute and work from home would potentially save the non-essential businesses.

And what they discovered was that productivity for the work-from-home staff was increased by nearly 20 percent. As time went on and the COVID lock-down lingered, business owners and employers started to see the new future of business unfold before them.

They could imagine embracing this new methodology of conducting business as a positive way to greatly reduce expenses and expand their bottom line.