While the work at home business scams, “systems”, and odd jobs are repeated off and on across the internet, there is a quiet breed of telecommuter that has silently simply packed up their laptop, plugged in their home phone, taken a few extra classes, and proceeded the transition from cubicle to home. Most of these people, as long as they stay with their current company, will not see the inside of a cubicle again. Neither will the person who takes their position down the line.
Telecommuters now work for some of the largest corporations – not as a privilege or a perk, but as a necessity. Service managers for AT&T earn nearly $75,000 a year, assisting business clients in resolving their communications and information technology issues, and working up to 70 hours a week. Instead of doing this in the office, they get to do it in their basement.
Office workers that bring their jobs home come from a variety of backgrounds, ranging from telecommunications and customer service to financial management and web design. Salaries from corporations normally vary from $40,000 to $70,000, and come with the same benefits as an in-person job, depending on the employer’s location, the employee’s expertise, and, of course, the nature of the job. The company normally supplies the equipment such as the laptop and the dedicated phone required for the work involved.
Some telecommuters don’t have it as easy as other, however – they may not be allowed to work a full-time, home-based schedule. While many have a schedule to work at home a full 40 hours a week, others may just work from home two to three days per week and need to work in-house for the remainder. More companies are considering the home-based model due to budget constrains and studies that show working from home actually increases productivity, and the cost savings of not maintaining a large office building can help companies expand their workforce without breaking the budget.
Many companies, instead of having their own full-time telecommute workforce, also outsource to companies that hire full time telecommuters. This happens most in the telecommunications world, where maintaining a call center is costly and often unnecessary for corporations year-round. Outsourced call center operations have created several interesting work from home models for eager telecommuters – many work as full time employees with benefits, while other get paid on a per-minute or per-call schedule.
While it’s a definite that home-based work in the corporate here to stay, the model is still shifting and evolving, and both the corporate world and the employees will continue to define what the home-based culture means. Message boards on Face Book, chat rooms and forums on specific companies, and other social media have begun to crop up for specific telecommuters working for specific businesses, including complaints, comments, and specific issues that affect everyday options, highlighting not only employee issues but operation issues by which potential investors may take notice. There are still a lot of hiccups to be smoothed out along the way.