The desire to work at home has inflicted multiple workers over the past few years. The numerous benefits inherent in home work make leaving office cubicles seem a worthwhile endeavor. When one decides to work at home, he has the opportunity to choose when he wakes up, when he begins working, whether he wants his own brand of coffee or prefers traveling to Starbucks and setting up his workspace there, with human company and freshly-brewed lattes surrounding him. The scenery is much more appealing than simple gray office walls.
However, people commonly do not consider critical drawbacks. Without an abundant amount of self-motivation, self-control, and willingness to dismiss the numerous distractions a household provides (e.g. television, internet, even video games), working at home can actually become a hindrance to positive production. For instance, procrastination can become a common occurrence. Without an objective overseer, an employee may find it especially easy to delay work until the following day. Then the day after that. Then, oh well, it can be put off a few more days, right? Until the boss needs the assignment in twenty minutes, and all the employee has written is “I don’t know.”
Depending on one’s job field, income can also be hindered by working at home. Freelance writers and designers, for instance, are unable to foresee which clients will contact them in the future. They can possess unequaled amounts of talent, but if they do not contact the right people, or delay contacting said people, their opportunities will be severely limited. Plus, applying to jobs over the internet has lead to employers regularly skimming resumes instead of scrutinizing them, or even simply dismissing them before even taking a cursory glance.
At a traditionally structured corporation, in which employees always arrive at nine and leave at five, income is secure, because their jobs usually provide guaranteed annual salaries (unless they get fired for sub-par production). But if the employee remains a productive worker and repeatedly produces a at a steady rate, the option exists for promotions, incentives, etc. Just staying around in a company for a sustained period of time increases the chances the employee may be considered for a higher position.
Those kinds of options are unavailable to freelance workers. Frequently, they invest most of their efforts on contacting potential clients through the Internet, which can become a rather unreliable method of applying. Because of the overwhelming number of applications employers receive for each position posted on a job-hunting site, such as CareerBuilder, they commonly dismiss viable candidates without taking one look at the submitted resume or work samples. The dismissal comes as a result of simply having too many applications through which to sift, so employers arbitrarily ignore applicants.
Some employees at traditional office buildings, however, are taking aspects of freelance careers and attempting to incorporate those dimensions into their own careers. That is, they are discovering more avenues that allow them to work at home while retaining the preconceived work structure of their typical office position. Many positives arise as a result of being able to transfer from a building office to a home office. Pregnant mothers, new mothers, work-at-home fathers, disabled employees, for example, can benefit greatly by working at home, which allows them to balance personal obligations and career-oriented obligations more easily.
A writer for Black Enterprise Magazine, Maria A. Reed-Woodward, noticed this trend of office workers transferring home and composed an article exploring the topic. The International Telework Association conducted a survey that found the number of teleworking employees grew from 41.3 million in 2003 to 44.4 million in 2005 and projects that number to climb to 51 million by 2008. Woodward quotes Jan Anderson, director of Midwest Institute of Telecommuting, who summarizes the general direction to which those statistics point: “There is a trend toward making jobs more mobile and permitting employees to have remote access to work from home.”
Employees armed with that statistical data may assume their suggestion to work at home will be met with resounding applause by their bosses. However, the largest influential factor when working at home is procrastination. Without a boss looming over one’s shoulder, ready to disparage or criticize the slightest fault, a worker may find it much easier to succumb to numerous omnipresent distractions. Personal phone calls may be made at any time, to anyone. There’s no such thing as “company time,” and therefore all time is personal. That freedom places a greater emphasis on the significance of self-discipline, which is not something easily developed if one does not inherently possess it.
Because of the benefits and detriments of work at home, if an employee who currently sits within a traditional office wishes to transfer to their home office, I suggest consulting others who operate from that position. Talk with freelancers who deal with daily distractions and unsteady, unreliable paychecks, just to certify whether one’s personal habits are suited well for work at home.
James Scottworth loves to write articles regarding small business. Previously he’s penned about how to get paid for surveys, and why taking surveys for moneycan be a great part time job for almost anyone.