8 Common Myths About Working from Home, Debunked

a post by Elyse Hauser for the lifesavvy blog [no record of where I found this]


LightField Studios/Shutterstock

If you think working from home is the purview of underpaid Millennials, think again. The typical remote worker, according to Global Workplace Analytics, is actually 45 or older and making $58,000 a year.

That’s just one of the many debunkable myths about remote work. Even though the number of people who work from home grows every year, misconceptions prevail.

But remote work is likely to be the future of many industries. It’s good for employees: it reduces stress, saves time, and can boost productivity. It’s good for employers: it saves on office rent, and lets companies hire from a global candidate pool. The sooner people understand the truth about remote work, the sooner we can all reap these benefits—so let’s debunk some of the top myths about working from home.

It’s Boring
It’s Lonely
It’s Difficult
It’s Easy
It Doesn’t Pay Well
It’s Hard to Find a Job
It Doesn’t Provide Benefits
It’s a Scam

Continue reading and find out what the author has to say about each of these points.

Adding my own thoughts: 

I found working from home difficult because people seemed to expect that I was free to do things. My husband made the adjustment from working in an office to making an office space in my home more difficulot because I was here.


Interestingly, now that I’m officially retired, once I am in the office space, even though what I do is purely voluntary, he has more respect for my shutting myself up in order to concentrate.

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Homeworking: negotiating the psychological contract

an article by Alison M. Collins and Susan Cartwright (Lancaster University, UK) and Donald Hislop (Loughborough University, UK) published in Human Resource Management Journal Volume 23 Issue 2 (April 2013)

Abstract

This article explores the psychological contract of female clerical homeworkers who work from home full-time and are employed at a local authority.

Qualitative interviews were carried out with homeworkers and their supervisors.

Temporal flexibility was desired by all the homeworkers in order to achieve a better work–life balance, and was deemed important by women without children as well as those with childcare responsibilities.

Our findings highlight that homeworkers were able to negotiate their own idiosyncratic deals with line managers in order to attain their desired levels of temporal flexibility. However, the issue of flexibility remains ambiguous with some supervisory staff being more comfortable with the concept than others, leading to some homeworkers enjoying different levels of temporal flexibility than their co-workers.

Our findings suggest that employees perceive flexibility idiosyncratic deals of co-workers as fair as long as they achieve their own personal levels of temporal flexibility.

The potential implications for organisations are discussed.

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Working from home: do formal or informal telework arrangements provide better work–family outcomes?

an article by Carolyn Troup (Griffith University, Queensland, Australia) and Judy Rose (University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, Australia) published in Community, Work & Family Volume 15 Issue 4 (November 2012)

Abstract

Telework arrangements include a suite of options that workplaces provide to meet the growing demand for greater work flexibility and as a strategy to promote work-family balance.

However, there has been minimal research comparing formal versus informal telework arrangements, and how they might support employees to manage the competing demands of work and family life.

In this paper, we examine how formal and informal telework arrangements impact on public sector employees’ job satisfaction, time spent on childcare, and satisfaction with the distribution of childcare tasks. We use survey data from public service employees who had access to telework entitlements in Queensland, Australia (n=856).

Our analyses showed that formal and informal telework arrangements provide different outcomes to employed women and men with children, particularly in the areas of job satisfaction and satisfaction with the distribution of childcare tasks. These distinctions suggest that it is important for workplaces to consider how the type of telework arrangement offered can affect how successfully and equitably work-family outcomes are achieved.

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Remote Worker Blogs

Those of you who work remotely will find the list that Marieke Guy has prepared of blogs that have helped her very useful.

To be honest, if you work at home alone you will probably find a lot of the information and advice helpful.

Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen is a technology blog by a guy who works from home. There are a lot of great technology reviews, podcasts, lists of services and programming tips but Scott also writes about the challenges of remote working in his remote work category.

Lea Woodward's Location Independent blog has always been a real inspiration. Lea left the rat race in 2005 and has been travelling round the work and working ever since (though they are now back in the UK). Her blog gives lots of good technical tips but is also one of the best for motivational support. I keep meaning to ask if Lea would consider writing a blog post!

Wide teams is a blog and podcast about geographically dispersed teams, with an emphasis on software development teams. It was created by Avdi Grimm, who has written a guest blog post for us before. The weekly podcast is excellent and offers a real hands-on perspective on newer ways of working.

How to Work from Home is a blog by Judy Heminsley. Judy organizes local Jellys (remote worker meet-ups) and is an active tweeter

Remote Worker Daily is the work of Doug Campbell, another guest blog post writer. It has lots of really useful advice, links to remote jobs and resources. Doug's site A mobile app a day is really good too.

The Work at Home Woman is a blog by Holly Reisem Hanna for mums who want to set up a business and work for themselves. There are quite a lot of interviews with home workers and lots of productivity tips.

In her Freelance Lifestyle blog Emma Cossey often writes about working from home. She also podcasts and offers online tutorials.

Andy Abramson’s blog is another technical perspective on home working. He often posts on VOIP and working anywhere.

The author of Head In The Clouds: The Location Independent Office – How to take your business or job online and work remotely from wherever you please!, Phil Byrne, also writes a blog about Living and working abroad. More useful tips and reviews.

Also a quick mention for Mashable and the readwriteblog – both great for ideas.

If you know of any great remote worker blogs please do go to Marieke’s post and add your recommendation into the comments.

Hazel’s comment:
Just what has this got to do with careers information? Not much.
What has this got to do with supporting guidance practitioners? A great deal – as more and more are forced into becoming consultants with the consequent loss of an employer’s central support system and administration.

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