is never going to be doubted again, or looked at as fringe.”
Meanwhile, the enforced work-from-home scenario, for those of you who have never considered it, may have triggered a desire to keep it going after the pandemic resolves itself.
I have never before talked to so many workers who adapted to using communication technology like Zoom conferencing and are embracing it, no longer intimidated or frustrated by screen-to-screen meetings and virtual meet-ups to chat with co-workers. They feel empowered.
My goal in writing this book is to help workers find a great remote job. Many of you may now have one—whether you opted in or not. If that's the case, skip to my workshop in Part III for advice on how to succeed as a remote worker over the long haul.
Each of us has unique work requirements and personalities, so use my advice as motivation. You will ultimately develop your own remote work recipe that suits you and, importantly, your manager and your employer's needs.
I work for several employers, but it's all virtual, and I have for a long, long time. How it works for me will differ from what works for you, but there is a spine of wisdom that you will find here that you can mold to make your own secret sauce.
The Changing Face of Remote Work
Even before the COVID-19, working from home was steadily gaining a head of steam for workers of all ages. Over the last five years, U.S. workers working remotely grew 44 percent to around 4.7 million, according to research by job board Flexjobs.com in partnership with Global Workplace Analytics.
Gallup research conducted before the onset of COVID-19 showed that 43 percent of employees worked remotely in some capacity. In a study conducted by Condeco Software, 41 percent of global businesses surveyed said they already offered some degree of remote working. Upwork's “Future Workforce Report” predicted that 73 percent of all teams will have remote workers by 2028, a percentage that may even be on the conservative side in the aftermath of the 2020 stay-at-home mandates.
Fueling the trend pre-COVID-19: In a survey from global outplacement and executive and business coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., 70 percent of employers reported they were having trouble finding applicants with the necessary qualifications. To attract talent, 62 percent were offering remote work options.
“Employers are having trouble finding workers with the skills needed to perform their duties,” says Andrew Challenger, vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. “If this continues, it could hurt the bottom line and limit expansion. As employees, especially Millennials and Gen Z workers, demand more work/life balance, employers will find they must respond with these offerings.”
Who doesn't yearn for flexible work schedules, a shuffle to the next room as a commute, and the fundamental joy of working away in the most basic of business-casual clothing—our pajamas.
In all seriousness, though, autonomy is one of the key components of loving a job, as I found when I wrote my book, Love Your Job: The New Rules of Career Happiness. Working remotely is an important way you can capture the elusive psychological feeling of freedom and personal independence. And there's a bottom-line benefit as well—it saves money that you might spend on commuting costs for transportation, meals and coffee out, work clothes, and the list goes on.
“More and more people are working remotely because they want flexibility over their schedule and where, when, and how they work,” Dan Schawbel (danschawbel.com), author of Back to Human and a Millennial and Gen X career and workplace expert, told me, again before the workplace shifted this spring. “And corporations benefit from a recruiting and retention standpoint by offering it, plus they save money on real estate costs. Both employees and employers win.”
This year, spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, “has been the ‘grand remote work experiment’ where people who have never worked remotely are for the first time and are benefitting from it,” Schawbel told me. “During this time, companies were being forced to allow their employees to work remotely for health and safety reasons, so they are developing the policies they should have had years ago.”
Technology has enabled people to work from Bali to Boston, regardless of where their boss is situated, and this year's cataclysmic necessity has borne that out. Importantly, they can hold on to a job when a partner or spouse is transferred to another posting, which is particularly germane to military spouses. (More on employers offering remote positions aimed at military spouses in Chapter 8.)
Video conferencing, texting, and other collaborative tools have blown open the door to the workplace. “In the future, remote work options will be as common as healthcare coverage,” Schawbel says. “It will be sought after and almost a benefit requirement. Employers that don't offer flexibility will not be able to compete for the top talent. Many younger workers and friends I know are willing to work for less money if they can work remotely. They're asking about it in their interviews.”
Back in 2007, when Schawbel created one of the first social media positions at a Fortune 200 company, he asked his manager if he could work from home at least occasionally. “I justified not being in the office because I could conduct all of my social media responsibilities remotely,” Schawbel recalls. “I had created and managed the company's Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts while contributing to their internal social media platform and helping various departments run campaigns. My manager wouldn't give me permission to work from home because, as he said, ‘it would make your teammates jealous.’ If my manager had responded by granting me the privilege to work from home, my employment situation might have sufficed and I would have stayed with the company longer.”
For those of you at mid-life, after years of commuting to an office, a work-from-home position can, in fact, be a dream job, and you may have just discovered that joy. It is for me. The top four reported reasons people seek remote work, according to an analysis by FlexJobs.com, are work-life balance (75 percent), family (45 percent), time savings (42 percent), and commute stress (41 percent). Other high-ranking factors for seeking flexible work options include avoiding office politics and distractions (33 percent), travel (29 percent), cost savings (25 percent), being a pet owner (24 percent), having caregiving responsibilities (18 percent), and living in a bad local job market (15 percent).
“Older workers want to retire from the office, not the job,” says Sharon Emek, founder of Work at Home Vintage Experts (WAHVE.com), a site for professionals over 50 who work from home for over 300 insurance and accounting firms. “Meantime, employers are looking for people they do not need to train.”
Getting Started
One of the easiest ways to stay in the workforce as you age, or as life events shift for you (a marriage, a spouse transfer, caring for children or aging relatives, a health issue) is to have a great pajama job, as I like to refer to working remotely. This has been my mode of work for many years now, albeit not always clad in pjs. And I admit, I'm far from retired at 59, but I find the autonomy of working outside of an office environment suits my lifestyle.
Landing a job that's a great fit for both parties is rarely an easy endeavor, and that's especially true for one where an employee is working out of a manager's sight on a regular basis. There's a bond of trust and commitment that is integral to make these work relationships thrive.
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