Working in an office, a
restaurant, a hotel or anywhere that requires your physical
presence is beneficial primarily when it comes to your social
life. You know, work becomes dull if you don’t have people
around who can keep you sane and keep you company during break
times. However, going to the office demands a lot of time and
budget. You need to wake up early just to get yourself
presentable. Many times, you have to come home late because you
need to stay longer in the office.
However, thanks to the
Internet, working from home has now become common in many
countries. More and more mothers are now switching to home-based
jobs for several reasons. Many students also opt to look for
home-based or online jobs. Some of the most popular online jobs
today are freelance writing, online typing, translation jobs,
data entry jobs, lay-outing or graphic designing, and many
others.
You may wonder why there
is a continuous trend in the number of employees working from
home. Well, read on below the advantages of being a
home-based employee.
Flexible with your
time
Unlike the 8 to 4 or 9
to 5 work in the office, home-based employment allows you to be
flexible with your time. Meaning, you can do other tasks and
household chores while not sacrificing the time allotted for
your work. For example, you can cook breakfast for your children
before they go to school. You can even send them to and fetch
from the school.
Another great thing
about working from home is that you can easily insert
trainings or crash courses in your schedule. This is very
helpful particularly if you want to expand your knowledge and
advance the career that you pursue.
Increased
productivity
You might disagree that
a home-based job can make you more productive because there is
no boss who remind or monitor you all the time. The truth is you
only need a certain level of self-discipline to keep everything
done according to plan.
The fact that you can
choose to do your work at the time most comfortable to you is
helping you become more productive. For example, if you are a
morning person, you can finish a lot of task early in the
morning. You sure can complete the task because you don’t have
office mates around who may bother you or delay your work
progress. The rest of the day, you can allot some time to
perform other tasks not related to work. Therefore, being
productive when working from home is not just about
completing more job-related tasks. It is also about attending to
responsibilities at home. This definitely increases your daily
productivity.
Improved health
For many, the office is
a stressful environment. From the office mates who talk
frequently during the day, to the clutters of paper scattered
around the office, to the bossy reminders of managers or
supervisors, the office definitely makes an employee’s day so
stressful. In addition, traveling to the workplace also becomes
stressful whenever there is traffic.
However, if you are
working from home, you do not have to suffer from the
aforementioned sources of stresses. You can choose to wake up in
the time that you feel you already had enough sleep. In
addition, you can cook and prepare healthy meals for yourself
and the whole family. Lastly, you are not exposed to the germs
and bacteria you may get from outside environment and from
co-workers.
More economical
One of major reasons why
many are switching to working from home is the
practicality of home-based employment. For one, you don’t have
to spend money on transportation. You lessen the budget needed
for oil and maintenance and repair of your car. You also don’t
need that much business clothing. Thus, you also lessen the need
to pay for dry cleaning and maintenance of these clothes.
Since you cook and work
at home, you don’t have to allot extra money for fast food,
which by the way are not really healthy. You can actually
maximize the budget allotted for the whole family’s food.
More comfortable
You would surely agree
that there is no other place more comfortable than your own
home. You can choose your own workspace and utilize the
resources you have around the house. You also don’t have to mind
if there are people who might criticize how you look.
You only have loving
children and partner who will give you kisses and hugs from time
to time, which can motivate you even more to work harder. Now,
that is a kind of comfort with love and inspiration.
Competitive
advantage
This is particularly
true for small business owners who chose to operate at home. In
general, you can greatly reduce the overhead cost because you do
not have to allot budget for rent and bills for electricity and
water. When working from home, you can also make sure
that you are offering your customers quality products or
services depending on what you offer. Since there is reduced
cost, you will absolutely increase the profitability of your
business.
In the US, there were
9.5 million home-based employees in 1999. This increased to 13.4
million in 2010, according to the US Census Bureau. These
workers worked at least one day every week. The bureau also had
a survey about the salaries of home-based workers. The survey
showed that the average annual household income for home-based
workers was $74,000. This is almost $10,000 higher than the
average of on-site workers, which was $65,000.
In the UK, there was a
45% increase in the numbers of employees working from home
during the last 16 years according to the Office for National
Statistics.
With the availability of
thousands of online jobs nowadays, it sure would not be
difficult to find one that suits your skills and interests. Some
of the home-based jobs that have been in trend since 2013
include web programmers, tech support agents, software
developers, medical transcriptionists, social media mangers,
public relations specialists, and others. You can also choose
from project or contract based jobs such as online writing.