The Real Score of Working From Home: The Whats and Hows

Last week, President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Telecommuting Act into law, which effectively offers telecommuting as an alternative work arrangement for employees in the private sector. Also called the “Work from Home” law, it provides safeguards for home-based workers to have the same benefits as office-based workers. It also tasks the Department of Labor and Employment to come up with clearer guidelines on the implementation of the law. The law, however, does not make telecommuting mandatory, but only optional. It will depend on the mutual agreement between the employer and its employees.

In the days following the news, discussions about what telecommuting means, how it works and what kind of work is online work started coming out. To give you a better idea, here are some tips from someone who has transitioned from a corporate job to a fully-remote career.

What is Telecommuting?

Telecommuting is defined as a work arrangement wherein the employee works outside the confines of an office, usually at home or a location close to home. This kind of work arrangement evolved with advances in technology and connectivity. According to a 2017 report of the International Labour Organization, “more flexible working time arrangements have been adopted, driven both by the needs of companies for more flexible production and the desire of workers to be able to better balance their work with other, personal commitments – often related to family duties.”

Telecommuting can mean working remotely in one’s home the whole time or working remotely part of the time. It generally means not being limited to working in an office. In today’s world where traffic congestion is a common occurrence, working from home can mean being more productive by not spending too much time travelling to and from your place of work.

What Kind of Work is Online Work?

One of the common questions that people will likely ask is: what kind of work can you do under a telecommuting arrangement? Obviously, not all types of work can be done under this arrangement. Offices and companies that provide services for example that require the physical presence of employees cannot do telecommuting.

In past decades, the kinds of work or jobs available that lend itself well to a work-from-home arrangement have increased. Advances in ICT, for example, fueled the growth of careers in ICT like coding, programming, data analytics, etc. Creative jobs such as writing, content development and marketing, and graphic design have gone online as well.

Another area of remote work is virtual assistance, which can range from administrative work such as maintaining client databases, managing mailboxes and sending out communications, to more complex tasks like financial bookkeeping or even research. Sadly, clicking on ads and filling out captchas is NOT considered online work.

My Journey from Corporate Work to Online Work

I moved to Baguio more than 6 years ago to settle with my family here. When I moved, I had to leave my 9-to-5 job. Initially, my employer and I tried a telecommuting arrangement for 6 months, but it did not work out. One main reason is that the tasks that my employer wanted me to work on required me to be physically present most of the time.

So, I had to venture into freelance work that allowed me to work from home. My background in Journalism allowed me to go back to writing, so I took on writing projects with online magazines and news sites. At one point, I was writing for 4 to 5 publications, doing news, news features, travel, and food reviews.

My corporate experience of 20 years, however, gave me a chance to do more specialized virtual assistance work. First, it was research work for an Australian immigration company. It was then followed by grant writing and feasibility research for a foundation.

By early 2018, I started doing part-time consultancy work with a technology startup, helping them with their programs with government and other partners. This same startup eventually hired me as a full-time Program Manager starting January 2019. I work from the comforts of home and I am online from 9 am to 5 pm. We do online meetings through Google Hangouts, and we use tools such as Slack for real-time communication.

Interested in exploring online work? Find out if you are cut out for online work. Here is a list of high-paying home-based jobs in the Philippines, according to Grit.ph.