Nowadays the trend of
working has been changed in contrast to past. Therefore, working online from home become more popular
throughout the world. Working online from homes means that people work at home with
internet. Whether they
are self-employed or employed by the employer or the company offering the
online job from home. With recent advances in
technology, including the Web, email, intranets, modems, cheaper fax machines
and voice mail, some people rarely go into the main office anymore. Ever since
the internet has conquered our lives in the last few decades, it has also
brought in greater flexibility. Advanced communication technologies and the
ability to work online allow for flexible work patterns, no matter where you
are at the office, at home, or at a
public place. It has enabled people to work online and organize things
remotely. Just by having a computer and internet access, it is easy to get in
touch with people in a different part of the world.
The number of
people working online also grown in some country. Refer to Elance website, they
list the country that leading working online from home is United States, Australia in United Kingdom, Canada, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand,
Singapore, Germany and some more
countries.
The
past few years, many organizations have begun offer online working that can do
the work at home. There have many website and company that provide online
working around the world. For example www.elance.com,
www.onlineworking.com and many more
web. Forbes.com was list the top 100 companies offering flexible online job on
2014. Of course, it is not available for doctors, firefighters or similar
professions which require physical presence. The famous working online at home
was in field of IT and Programming, Design and Multimedia, Sale and Marketing,
Finance and Management, and some others field.
Some example of job is, online tutor or
teacher, typist, Customer service agents,
"Virtual" assistants, Writer or editor. As mention above not necessarily work with company, become the Internet entrepreneur also a very famous choice of people
whom working online from home. Obviously, such
style of work has its own advantages and disadvantages. Lets we see about this.
Advantages
First
of all, working online from home will save
money. When people go out to office or to their workplace, they need to
think about the expenses such as for breakfast or lunch treats. If the company
or workplace not provided the car pack, they need to pay for parking. It also saved
fuel expenses. No Need to buy the business suit or uniform. From home, they can
work in t-shirt or anything what they want to wear because there have no dress
code. No need pay for public transport and any day care things. All these
expenses can amount to hundreds of ringgit every month. So the money saved by staying home can
be used in other ways such as vacations, paying down debt or even inventory for
the online working.
Secondly is the flexibility. This does not just relate to timings either although
the flexibility to determine the own work hours to some extent is the most
important aspect of this. They can also determine their environment, lighting,
temperature, setting, and mood. Basically work in the framework that suits the
best and makes happiest and most productive. Stepping away from the office
environment allows to set their own working schedule so that they
can prioritize more effectively. On top of flexible working hours you also
have complete flexibility over their working environment.
Thirdly is more family time. There is a point in
the life of all of every one where the family became the anchor and main
priority. If they are married or have children at home, this type of work
situation could be especially convenient for them. It is not about just
parents, but rather about when they move outside with a wife or husband, and
when they get kids around. When they work online from home the value extra time
that they have to spend with their loved ones. As a dad or mom they will also
be in a much better position to educate and take care of children if there are
around all day long.
Some women choose
to stay at home with their children. Working online allows an opportunity for
mom to be at home with the kids and still generate income. With long days and
equally long travel times it can be hard to be there for family. Working from
home allows to be closer to relatives and gives the flexibility to visit them
at any time. This is especially important for parents and elderly carers
as they can have the peace of mind that they are available if they are ever
needed.
The last but
not least working online from home can improve health and fitness.
With time saved on commuting and the ability to set own schedule they can set
aside time to focus on their well-being. This could be a workout in
the morning, lunch break or even just a five minute walk to clear their head.
They also have time to exercise and do their hobby and sports. Working online from
home also means they have access to their own fridge and kitchen facilities;
this gives more opportunity for healthier meals and snacks without the
limitations of the crammed office fridge and faulty microwave. They also do not
need to order fast food most of the times.
In other hand,
it also have disadvantages of working online from home should be considered.
Firstly is Many distractions. When they working in the same
place there are living it can be very difficult to separate home life from work
life. There are a lot of types of distraction that one may experience while
working at home, for example the parental duties. A lot of mothers
are trying to work at home in order to take care of the children without
sacrificing employment. It is a good thing to hear that the children won't be
left with a babysitter. The love and care of parents is different from those
given by other people. But this heartwarming action taken by the parents can be
a big distraction to their work. The baby may cry while it is working hours.
The children may distract the parents from working, resulting to unproductive
work.
Secondly,
working online from home requires high self discipline and motivation. If
they are a disciplined person then they might not face any problems. If they
need to have a boss or colleagues around to motivate them, however, it might
become an issue. As we know, working from home is a real test of strong will
and determination. With no managers keeping an eye on them and no team members
looking up to them, they can essentially do what they want with their time. It
is far too easy to turn on the radio, television or even a games console just
to break silence which can greatly reduce the quantity and quality of work. One
of the most common distractions when working from home is procrastinating by
spending the work time on personal chores. To ensure they remain
productive that is ignore the chores, for example, keep the TV turned off and
leave long chats with family until they are out of their specified work hours.
Thirdly is when
working online from home, they are lack of face to face communication.
Some conversations need to take place face-to-face, if one of team or
co-workers is having personel or performance issues it can sometimes be very
impractical and impersonal to try and resolve this over the phone. Occasionally,
these conversations can also be highly time sensitive meaning they should
not wait until the next time they are in the office to address them. With this
in mind, should consider whether working from home will be detrimental to
effectiveness in their role.
When working
online from home, they are working alone, will have limited person to talk to.
Unlike in office there will be a lot of people that will talk and around them.
Team member, maintenance personnel, security, secretary and boss. Unlike at
home nothing. Just do the work alone by their self.
The last is,
when working online from home, they need to consider about maintaining
electricity, internet connection and software. Unless they have an
alternate power source at home, they won't need to consider electricity as a
problem. Most of them don't have that kind of power source. Being an online worker
means being completely reliant on computer and it is power source. Electricity
fluctuations while at work will cause a lot of problems. Unsaved files,
disconnected chats and calls, computer problems or restarting the progress of the
work.
Every company
uses a tools or a software used on each job. Like customer service, it requires
a CRM tool to manage customers account information. If this software crashes
all they need to do is call the IT technician to fix it. That if they are
working in an office with complete and full support with their employees but
when at home. Some basic troubleshooting step to fix it need to do it by own self.
Sometimes maybe can get some help by calling them or sending an email to their
support but it will take some time to get the answer for the problem. All these
problem should be considered, because it will make the work stuck for a few
times, that make it late to be finished.
Conclusion
All
things considered, working at home have the advantages and disadvantages. In
spite of the facts remotely working avoids from traffic challenges and gives
freedom, many people find it difficult to manage time between work and home.
Personally, I believe that working from home is less stressful and it is depend
on people and their ambitions get drawbacks or advantages from working at home.
Even
with all these above disadvantages all they have to do as with regular
employment take advantage of many online career development support education.
They are in their computer almost 24/7 then make the most of it. So many
tutorials and updates of anything related to web mastery that it is up to them to get their benefits
or be lazy enough to just let the talent and skill go their way to redundancy
and irrelevance. Like the many of us in the mainstream of online jobs work,
learn and have fun in front of yours.
To
conclude, there are several benefits to working from home. Many employers have
already realized this and started encouraging their workers to work from home.
In the future, we will certainly have more organizations taking this route.
