By Philip Yiga | June 5, 2018

What Is Telecommuting? – Definition:

Telecommuting refers to a working arrangement in which the employee works outside the office, often working from home or a location close to home but outside of the principal office. For example, an employee can telecommute from areas like coffee shops, libraries, and various other locations. On the other hand, some employees may typically work from home for one or more days a week and then communicate with their offices over phone or internet-related forms like chats or emails.

However, some Telecommuting workers may occasionally enter the office to attend meetings and to consult their employers but other employees may use different options for distance-conferencing thus eliminating the need for visiting the offices. Lastly, Telecommuting is very is a very flexible work arrangement that might also include some other non-traditional work setup like a flexible schedule although it’s not necessarily the case with all telecommuting jobs.

 

Other Terms for Telecommuting:

Telecommuting may also be referred to as teleworking, remote working, flexible work arrangement, virtual-working, mobile-working and e-working. This is mainly because it can be achieved through all telephones, internet-connection and chats hence making work very convenient and flexible than never before.

 

Examples of Telecommuting Jobs:

There are actually a lot of jobs that could be done from home but they are still being done under offices/workplace-areas. In fact, most jobs today only require a computer and mobile-phone which makes them perfect for telecommuting positions since both of those devices are common in most households. So, below are some of the examples telecommuting jobs in the world today;

• Web designing: many website designers and developers are actually working from home today as long as they have a computer and internet-connection hence no-longer need to go to physical-offices to get work done.

 

• Writers/content-writing: Today many book writer/authors do all their work from home and also content-writer can provide their services conveniently at home.

 

• Administrative assistants: Some assistants no-longer need offices because they can easily make decisions and accomplish their work while at home or when travelling.

 

• Software engineers: These help to create different web and mobile based Apps or software and they can actually do it anywhere hence eliminating the need for going to physical-offices.

 

• Systems engineers: These people can actually repair, upgrade and troubleshoot computer-systems or software remotely thus making them part of the telecommuting-force.

 

• Bloggers: These are generally content developers with their own websites and they actually post useful content on those websites so that users can easily find it in the search engine.

 

• Freelancers: A freelancer can be hired online to do for any job that doesn’t require physical-contact like website-designing, content-writing, online sales and marketing, etc.

 

• Financial analysts: These people help to analyze the financial status of the economy can be hired to analyze the financial status of your company remote. Such people may include auditors, financial-advisors, etc.

 

• Teachers/tutors: Today, some teachers are actually providing online-courses that can be accessed by different students all-over the world at an affordable-price or free charge. For example, websites like Udemy-com allow teachers to create and sell their courses online which is a great thing.

 

• Interpreters: These people can be hired to interpret for you things that you don’t understand like economic-trends, dreams, etc.

 

• Online-customer-support: Today, most companies hire telecommuters who can actually provide customer-care services remotely. This actually allows companies to save a lot of money of hiring full-time customer-support.

 

• Online marketing agents: These agents can be hired by companies in-order to market their products online so as to increase on their sales.

 

• Travel agents.
• Medical transcriptionists. Etc.

 

Who Telecommutes?

• About 3.9 million U.S-employees or 2.9% of the total U.S-workforce work from home for at least half of the time.
• An average telecommuter is about 46-years of age or older and 50% of telecommuters are 45-years or older.
• There has been a 115% increase in telecommuting jobs between 2005-to-2015.
• Approximately 53% of Telecommuters have at least a bachelor’s degree compared to the 37% of non-telecommuters.
• About the same number of women and men have telecommuting jobs.
• Full-time employees are 4-times more likely to have an option of working at home than part-time employees.
• 40% more U.S-employers offered flexible workplace options in 2017 than they did in the past.
• An average annual income of telecommuters is about $4000 which is actually higher than those who work on-site.

 

Benefits of Telecommuting:

• Telecommuting offers workers with greater freedom regarding their work hours and work location.
• It offers employees with maximum flexibility in-terms of balancing work and personal obligations.
• Telecommuting often makes workers more productive since they don’t get any distractions like under an office-environment.
• Telecommuting is also of great benefit to companies because they will be able to save a lot of money that could have been spent on office-utilities.
• Telecommuters are also more likely to be happier on their jobs and therefore more likely to stay within the company.

 

Drawbacks of Telecommuting:

• Working from home requires extreme self-motivation which most young people lack. In fact, some Telecommuter may get distracted easily especially those with families.
• Telecommuting also requires getting a productive place to do your work like a home-office or coffee-shop.
• Telecommuting is a bit isolating and boring because it eliminates any physical co-workers.
• It’s also very common to see advertisements or even official-looking job offers that claim to provide telecommute-positions when they are just scams.

 

Finding a Telecommuting Job:

There are several steps you will need to take when finding a telecommuting job. In fact, the best option will be looking for jobs at companies known for hiring telecommuters or even search job-sites geared towards telecommuters like; Freelancer.com, Upwork.com and a lot more. However, you need to be extremely careful about job-scams which tend to promise applicants easy money at a work-from-home job when they are actually using tricks to take away your money or identity.