Tag: work from home

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Is Telework a Ticking Time Bomb?

If you are currently telecommuting and working from home under a temporary agreement with your employer, whether they be private businesses, nonprofits, and federal, state, or local governments, there is a good chance that you will continue to work from home following the pandemic.

Is Telework a Ticking Time Bomb?

Many businesses and organizations are already making plans to cut back on the currently extraneous resources necessary to keep in place for your return to work after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. So, if you are thinking about returning to your former office space, you might be surprised to find the entire building empty, for lease, or sale.

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While many employers are using teleworking as a method to “just get by” during the coronavirus lockdown, most of them are reorganizing their efforts to focus on expanding teleworking from home at an increased rate after restrictions are lifted.

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Of course, it makes sense from a budget perspective as the business or organization does not have to bear the expense of all that overhead associated with providing a space for workers, which is beginning to look like an archaic form of conducting one’s business affairs.

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And employees are responding much better than expected. Professional performance rates are up since they started working from home, as much as 20% or more (some employers are reporting productivity increase as much as 33%).

The logical conclusion is to continue doing what works best and cut out all the expenses that were associated with the old methods of doing business.

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The employees are ecstatic to recouped hours of their lives previously spent commuting to and from work, and their costs of working have also been greatly reduced, such as laundry, and meals.

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Even so, there is also a Dark Side of Teleworking that employers are not as concerned with as the employees are, as the Top 5 Complaints of Teleworkers are childcare issues, no social interaction, productivity pressure, inadequate home office space and/or supplies, and lack of separation while working at home.

If there were a number 6 ranked complaint, it would be growing tension at home. Families are unaccustomed to being basically celled-in with each other for long periods of time, and the huge growth in domestic violence calls since the lockdown was initiated bears witness to this.

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So, the tension is building as the pandemic marches on, and this may be the ticking time bomb for those who are telecommuting and working from home.

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The businesses and organizations that are fully embracing the idea of going forward into the future with as much telecommuting as possible are considering upping the ante in support of the new teleworking community by adding subsidies to help take the edge off of working from home.

Some examples include a stipend or expense account for telecommuters for ancillary expenses which were previously borne by the company or organization. This might include everything from toilet paper and coffee to office supplies and technology-related expenses. Some employers are entertaining the idea of subsidizing rents or mortgage payments in exchange for the area inside the home which is set aside for work-related activities.

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What does the future hold for telecommuters?

No one knows for sure, but the future will have many more employees working from home than you ever thought possible pre-pandemic.

What will it look like?

We don’t know, but we are eager to find out.

Is telework a ticking time bomb?

Not if we are aware and prepared for what lies ahead.

 

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How to Successfully Work from Home

In today’s new work-world, telecommuting, online jobs, and working from home are the new standard of doing business every day in the United States. If you haven’t already, it’s a good time to get up to speed and learn how to successfully work from home if you want to be a part of this new economy. Here are 7 ways to be successful in your in-home endeavor and to prevent getting burned out by doing so.

7 Ways to Successfully Work from Home

1 – Workspace

While working in your pajamas in your bed in front of the TV with an espresso machine on the nightstand might seem like a great plan. It’s a good idea not to work where you sleep (or regularly perform any other activities). Carve out a space you can designate as your workspace and make this the place where you perform all your work duties. Even if you live in a small apartment, you can still carve out a niche to call your office. Try to make your space distraction-free, and face a wall while you work, instead of an opened window, television, or entertainment center. Fell free to decorate your space, just as you might your cubicle or office space and have your office tools handy as well.

2 – Routine

Many jobs online can be extremely flexible in allowing you to adjust your work hours to what suits you best. This can be problematic when you put off some work to make time for other things, then find yourself cramming in streams of long hours at the end of the week to make up for it. Stick to a schedule and schedule as much of the rest of your life as you can.

Take breaks and eat at the same times, get up, get ready, and start your workdays at the same time(s) as well, if you can. This regular continuity will keep you on top of your game and prevent your work activities from spilling over into your private life, when there is little or no physical separation.

3 – Boundaries

Separation is the key. By setting boundaries you can create a sense of physical separation even if there is none. If you share your home with other people, like your family or roommates, make sure you let them know that when you’re in your room with the door closed, at your workstation (which could be as simple as a TV tray facing the wall), this means you are working, and you should not be disturbed or interrupted when you are in your home-working-space.

Also, set boundaries for family and friends, who may not have as much respect for your telecommuting status. At first, when your friends and family find out that you’re working from home, all they really get is the fact that you’re at home. That normally might mean that you are available to interact or entertain them. Set clear boundaries, and make them aware of your break times, so that they can phone you or “do lunch” during your regularly scheduled lunch break time.

4 – Me Time

You may already realize that no one can really look after your best interests than yourself. So, it’s up to you to find ways to practice self-care within the confines of your life as a teleworker or as you are working online jobs.

Make certain to make space for “me time” during your work week. Do a hobby, take a walk in the park, play a sport, take a luxurious bath, get a massage, etc. Taking time out for you can greatly expand your ability to maintain a heightened state of peak performance. Often, your best ideas about how to increase your performance come when you are engaged in self-care, whatever that means for you.

5 – Exercise

If your “me time” doesn’t include exercise, you should make some additional time during your workweek for a bit of aerobic activity. If the gym is not open, you can ride a bike, run around the block, get on the treadmill (if you have one), jump on a trampoline (could be a mini trampoline) to music, or put in an aerobic workout DVD and be sure to follow along (not just watch it).

A bit of regular aerobic exercise is good for increasing brain power, physiological metabolism, health status, immunity, and overall peak performance.

6 – Off-time

The best way to assure you’re successfully working from home is to not work when you’re not working. When your office is in your home, its easy to be lured back into your home workstation because something just occurred to you. The next thing you know, you’ve been working for three hours, and your chance to have quality time for you, your family, or friends has quickly slipped away. Don’t do it.

When something occurs to you, jot it down on a note, just as you would had you thought of something at home back when you had to commute to and from the office, only now you can leave the note on your workstation, then get back to it when your routine say it’s time to work.

7 – Backup

Have a backup plan and resources on standby. If you’re feeling stressed about working from home, telecommuting, or working online jobs, have a list of places you can go, calls you can make, and take advantage of services that are readily available.

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, many resources are available online or via cell phone. Take advantage of them and don’t fall victim to work from home burnout.

Have your list of backup resources ready before you need them.

 

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The Biggest Lie You Are Told at Work

The biggest lie you are told at work is that you are getting paid what you are worth. If you knew the truth, you would know that your employer is making at least five times what you are being paid. Once you have an awareness of how valuable you actually are you assume a position of empowerment.

Now that you know how valuable you are, you are able to negotiate with your employer, since you now realize that you are grossly underpaid.

You may be making a wage that is comfortable for you, and maybe you don’t want to rock the boat too much. So, what could you ask for? Freedom, my friend, freedom.

You can easily ask for a bit of liberty and freedom, to be released from the shackles of the environment which you are forced to be entrapped in. Instead of working your nine-to-five within the confines of your regular job, and having to commute back-and-forth every day, propose that you telecommute, or work from home.

You may not be able to accomplish all of the details of your work at home, but the more you can be free, the better your quality of life can be.

Thanks to the coronavirus and the government’s ensuing COVID-19 lockdown, we are discovering that many jobs that required heavy commutes and unending hours away from home, translated into full-time work from home jobs online.

While the experiment of sending people home to work from home during the lockdown panicked many a manager, and administrators were fit to be tied, the results were astounding. Employees were not only able to perform many (if not all) of their job functions from home, but employee productivity shot up nearly 20 percent.

What do you think administration and management thought of that?

Think about it. If the company, agency, or organization that you are working for was raking in $500 for every $100 they paid you, now they’re making $600 for every $100 you get paid if you’re telecommuting or working from home. Is that a profitable move? You know it is.

If you’re currently working for a company that is not offering you telecommuting or considering the move of your job online, it’s an easy proposal to make.

In fact, the businesses, agencies, and organizations who quickly embraced the idea of empowering their employees to work from their homes when the COVID-19 lockdown reared its ugly head, they were able to survive the storm. They found themselves not only surviving but thriving.

It wasn’t long and they started having meetings about how to reduce costs by eliminating offices, brick and mortar facades, and getting out of leases to accommodate on-site workers. Having the teleworkers working from home was not only more profitable, but it allowed them to cut costs immensely.

After the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, many employees will be surprised to find out that they will be continuing to work from home, instead of having to commute to and from work every day. The companies win, the employees win, because even if they don’t get a salary increase, not having the expenses associated with commuting to and from work, is like getting a raise, plus you get the most valuable asset of all by telecommuting; your life back. All the hours you wasted in traveling to and from your job are now yours to keep and do with what you want.

So, yes, the time is now to make a presentation to your employer about working from home if you’re not already doing so. Everyone wins.

You are worth five times what you are getting paid
You are worth five times what you are getting paid

Although, there is another option to think about.

WORK FROM HOME BONUS

There are others who are exercising a completely different strategy, and you might consider this as an option for yourself.

There is a growing number of Americans who are ditching the jobs online altogether, and performing their former skill set by moving their job online as a self-employed freelancer, for two-and-a-half times their former salary!

These people have figured out that they are easily worth five-times their former pay, so why not strike out and create their own opportunities offering their skills to other businesses?

If you do so, you get to choose.

Do you take in two-and-a-half times the pay for doing the same work?

Or do you make the same amount of money and work 25% as much as you are now?

Alternatively, you could start your own online business with low overhead and huge profit potential, though this takes a bit more savvy.

As many have discovered, taking your start-up business to the Internet is a simple process but it is not easy, and many fail or shiver in a fetal position from the thought of it. But with the right coaching, you could be one of the wildly successful ones.

Think about it.

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Silicon Valley Workers Telecommute as Jobs Move Online

Following the COVID-19 lockdown, many workers were forced to telecommute and work from home to help keep Silicon Valley’s mainstays afloat. While many tech giants were already supporting telecommuting as their regular way of conducting business, others were forced to adopt methods to accommodate the Silicon Valley workers’ telecommute as jobs move online.

As inconvenient to the tech industry as the pandemic was, the environment began to repair itself from many years of abuse caused by the industry’s commute. This is being witnessed throughout the earth, as the world heals itself during these trying times.

The businesses, like Apple, were shocked at the nearly 20% increase in productivity of workers who were able to take their former office jobs to their homes, and as many businesses have already noted, this is a huge incentive to promote telecommuting and working from home, as opposed to having to bear the added overhead costs associated with maintaining a group culture at a physical location.

Silicon Valley’s Bay Area Transportation Department says, the impact on the environment has been so spectacular, that they are launching a program that will mandate that San Francisco area businesses will be required to maintain 60 percent of their workforce as telecommuting and working from home.

While this is good news for reducing the cost of doing business in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is an entire infrastructure sub-industry in place which supports the pre-pandemic commuting workforce that is at risk of crumbling.

Already, many of the restaurants who rely on the former commuting workforce to support their endeavors, without the means to support themselves through the COVID-19 lockdown, have closed their doors without the intention or the ability to reopen after restrictions are lifted.

Many businesses and transit agencies which depend on workers who commute to and from work are being lost, possibly never to return.

Companies like Google are joining the ranks of others such as Facebook, Twitter, and Square to adopt and continue to embrace the work-at-home model as part of their method of operations in the foreseeable future. In fact, Twitter and Square are leading the pack by not caring that their employees ever return to work. They are perfectly content with the new work from home model.

This is good news for Silicon Valley workers who live and work in one of the most expensive areas to live in the USA. For them, the commute is expensive and reduces their overall quality of life. Some live far enough away from the core of the Bay Area to reduce their monthly overhead costs of having to pay high rental fees or mortgage payments.

And for those workers who were willing to pay exorbitant rental rates and mortgage payments to stay close to work? They are rethinking their strategy. Many are looking to relocate outside the area or are putting their homes up for sale to move altogether. While it may have relatively easy to sell a home in the pre-pandemic Bay Area, many listings are not being seen, for at present many people are giving pause to the idea of moving into prime real estate in San Francisco.

A two-hour commute to and from work is considered an average commute. That’s four hours a day of your life lost forever, driving to and from work.

Telecommuting and moving your job online is a highly advantageous method of increasing your quality of life, especially if you’re balancing living and working in Silicon Valley.

As we see this trend emerging from California’s Frisco Bay, this is a foreshadowing of things to come for many, if not all areas of the United States.

Will you be ready for the change?

 

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2020 Telecommute Statistics Jobs Online Skyrocketing

There is no doubt if we learned anything in 2020, it was how to increase the number of teleworkers thanks to the coronavirus. 2020 telecommute statistics jobs online skyrocketing and final numbers are yet to come. The resulting lockdown in the USA forced many workers to telecommute and move their job online to keep our country’s economy afloat during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Statistics show a general growth in telecommuting and working from home in the 2000s, from 2001 to 2019, then a huge spike in telecommuters in 2020 thanks to the United States’ response to keep it moving through the lockdown, boasting nearly 80 million workers telecommuting and continuing to raise daily.

Those in non-essential job positions who were able to convert their jobs to telecommuting, working remotely, or from home, they were able to keep their positions and thrive, while others were forced to accept federally-enhanced unemployment compensation while under “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” restrictions.

While these changes in workstyles are considered temporary while those who previously worked in an office or cubicle are now working from home, there is a growing trend that is seeing employers re-evaluating their overhead costs.

Employee productivity is up, and costs to run businesses, organizations, and government agencies have dropped tremendously, as more workers are able to move their jobs online.

There is a good chance that if you are currently working from home that this may not be as temporary as you might have thought. Employers all over our nation are rethinking and reimagining the way businesses and organizations will be run in the future, and you are looking at a significant test run in action right now.

The future will see telecommuting jobs (office workers working from home full or part-time) turning into remote work. You might think that telecommuting and remote-working are one and the same. While they are similar, the main distinction is that a telecommuting job assumes that there is some commuting done to and from work, where the commute has been replaced by working via the Internet or teleconferencing.

Remote work represents the type of job that may be conducted disconnected from any commute to and from the workplace. As such, a worker working from a remote office area or home may well be outside the geographical region where the employer is physically located.

Remote is far more highly sought after by employers because there is little or no physical space requirements which are a drain on overhead costs to accommodate employees at the workplace.

That said, not all teleworkers or remote workers work from home. Many choose to work from Internet cafes, coworking spaces, virtual offices, coffee shops, or other remote location(s) which may include any location where a laptop can be powered or charged, and a connection to the Internet is available.

Of course, there are many jobs that cannot be translated into online positions, but for those who can, this is the growing trend.

And if you are one of the one’s who has found himself or herself in a position to telecommute “temporarily” due to the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdown, don’t be surprised when the restrictions are lifted that you discover that all (or nearly all) of your commute has been eliminated.

Employers are already looking for ways to exit their lease contracts, as they are finding that telecommuting and transitioning to jobs online is a far better and more cost-effective way to conduct their affairs.

Telecommuting and jobs online are the new normal.

 

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Turn Your Office Job into Your Telecommute Gig and Work from Home

Be aware that there is no fill-in-the-blank form that you can present your existing employer with to pitch your suggestion that it may be highly beneficial for the company and you as the employee to turn your office job into your telecommute gig and work from home from this point forward.

This may be your idea, to convert your job into an online job, or it might be necessary. It could be the only way to continue to work your job during the COVID-19 lockdown. Many government agencies, organizations, and businesses have continued to conduct their affairs and remain solvent enough to weather the coronavirus storm by initiating the move to telework solutions. Those who adopted this new style of doing business fared best of the businesses that suffered greatly from the pandemic.

Maybe you’re working for an essential business, or maybe you’d just like a little more freedom and increased quality of life that comes from transforming your day job into a telecommuting scenario.

Family leaders can possibly save a great deal in daycare expenses, and everyone can benefit from the hour-and-a-half loss of life during the commute to-and-from work, as well as not having to pay the cost of commuting to and from work.

You must formulate a compelling presentation for your employer to get a glimpse at all the unforeseen positive possibilities that could arise from such an arrangement.

  1. Evaluation

You will have to take a good hard look at your job duties and how your work interfaces with the rest of the agency or business. Then, ask yourself, “Would your job function and the performance of these duties translate well to a work-from-home environment?”

If your boss hasn’t already told you how this is supposed to look, it is up to you to chart out exactly what you performing your job duties and working from home is going to look like.

Evaluating what is required of you and translating this to a telework scenario and remembering that the result must be more advantageous to your employer as you work from under your own roof than working under his roof.

If you cannot show at least a 20% increase in your work performance, it will be a harder sell to your existing employer.

Be as explicit as possible as you evaluate how much time you spend doing each task throughout your regular workday.

  1. Prepare Your Presentation

The presentation that you present to your employer must be well thought out, detailed, and look good. This is not the time to take your employer to lunch and scratch out the details on a napkin. Use your best presentation skills.

Make sure to express your strict work schedule, how you will separate yourself from other potential household distractions, and how you will be available to your employer and via which methods (phone, text, video chat, desktop sharing, email, etc.). Note that you may not be able to translate all specifics to your home, so you may end up with a presentation that has you working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from home and Tuesday and Thursday in the office.

Advantages to you are obvious but you will have to emphasize all the benefits your employer will enjoy from this enhanced working enhancement.

  1. Troubleshoot in Advance

You must be prepared to address all extraneous issues that might come up, such as technology and security issues. Have your answers ready in advance. Will you be able to connect to the servers in the office? How will you attend in-person meetings? Does your employer already have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for your telecommuting usage? Check with the IT department to make sure that you don’t forget anything that might be a barrier to your successful telecommuting gig.

  1. Give It Time

If your employer does not already embrace the idea of teleworking, don’t demand a yes or no answer right away, because the default answer from any employer who has little no experience with telecommuting workers is, “No.” Instead, allow the employer to think about it, mull it over, sleep on it, and make yourself available to answer any questions or concerns that he might have with your working from home arrangement.

If you are prepared and not impatient, there is an excellent chance you will be working from home soon.

And if your boss doesn’t go for it, there are many other employers out there anxious to talk to you about working for them from your own home.

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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.

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Telecommute as Jobs Move Online Post COVID-19 Pandemic

The world is rapidly changing and you are charged with the task of adapting to this reality that is altering the way we do business, the way we live and work, more from home than ever before thanks to the COVID pandemic, but it’s more than that.

Government agencies have been running on minimal capacity with limited resources, with many federal, state, and municipal employees downsized, furloughed, or forced to work from home or telecommute. While the idea of having to telecommute as an alternative to losing your job altogether, it made sense to move your job online, which felt like punishment at first due to the coronavirus.

Then something unexpected happened; those who were forced to work from home rather than commute to and from their respective offices, liked it. Not only did they regain the time spent getting to and from work, but they had more flexibility during their work hours at home.

And the employers liked it. Employee productivity shot up a surprising 18% and the cost of doing business was reduced dramatically. So impressive are these results, that there is an underlying intention that after the pandemic restrictions are lifted

The way we conduct business will change forever.

Agencies are already preparing to cancel their leases for office space, cutting all extraneous expenses. No rent, no lights, heating, cooling, cleaning, maintenance, all gone, and the employees are more effective working from home.

This is the future of how we conduct business in the United States and possibly the world.

This new format for conducting business from home or telecommuting has affected nearly every form of business, as we are forced to conduct business online, via phone, and deliver goods and services by other means than having customers visit a traditional retail establishment.

It is more important for businesses to quickly adapt to this new migration to conducting business online as soon as possible, and for those who do not, they may not be able to survive this metamorphosis.

Nearly every type of business is affected. Even labor-intensive businesses, much of the administrative and management staff can opt out of work-related and telecommute, increasing their efficacy and reducing unnecessary costs and overhead.

But this means changing the way we live, as jobs move from brick and mortar to our homes.

Many people are not working now, and when you are able to go back to work, there’s a good chance that the jobs that will be available are going to be… You guessed it:

Telecommuting and Jobs Online

This is the nature of the new world which is emerging from the rubble of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, and possibly the world.

Will you be ready?

The time is now to start carving out a place in your home where you can work uninterrupted while integrating into this new normal.

A way to access the Internet is of vital importance, and while the world is shifting into this new direction new methods of making access available to the World Wide Web will be critical. We are already seeing this in school children who are having to attend school online.

We are frantically trying to make the Internet available to all including underdeveloped areas and underprivileged children who would not otherwise have the necessary equipment or connectivity to participate in school online.

Buckle up and get ready for an entirely new future outlook, compliments to 2020.