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If somehow all negotiations fail and your company decides that it is absolutely impossible for you to work from home or work less than 5 days a week, then the only option you have left is to leave your job.
This can be a hard decision, but remember that the purpose of this income is to allow you to comfortably support yourself so you can eat, have some fun and pay all the bills while you work on building your future primary income sources.
You won’t save heaps necessarily, but you’ll be able to survive and earn extra income from your efforts to develop your other income streams.
One year is not an unreasonable amount of time that a person will need to develop themselves as a freelancer or to develop an income generating online business.
Also, by having your job, your resume stays up-to-date assuming you are a person who worries about such things. Your career options remain fresh and you don’t have to worry if after a year of trying you decide you need to go back to a full-time job.
To find a telecommuting position can be tricky depending on where in the world you might be. In the USA, there are job sites such as Flexjobs.com that promote telecommuting jobs. This however does not seem to be prevalent in other places in the world and if there are similar sites to Flexjobs they are not widely known to me.
Most of the sites that promote telecommuting type work usually tend to mix freelance jobs and ongoing contract work. Some of these sites as well do not go through the extensive filtering that sites like Flexjobs does to ensure that all the telecommuting jobs they promote are legitimate.
Telecommuting jobs by my definition are long term jobs that pay consistently and are usually being offered by companies that are publically visible and can be verified easily as real companies.
You don’t need the added stress of wondering whether the company that is offering you a job is actually legit.
Because of this we recommend you attempt to find a part time or telecommuting job locally or at least within your own country. There are less issues to deal with and communicating and checking out the hiring company becomes easier if they are local.
So what should you ask for when applying for such companies?
One thing you can do is outright state in your resume that you are looking to either work part time or that you are looking for a full-time position that allows you to work from home a couple of days a week.
If you’re only looking for a part-time position then this is fairly straight forward because there are a lot of companies who are only looking to hire part time staff.
When it comes to advertising job positions, most companies are fairly direct as well. If they want people to work part time, they will say that is what they are looking for in their ad.
If they are looking for staff to telecommute, they will mention that as well.
However, due to the lack of companies actively promoting telecommuting positions, you may need to modify your language slightly to find jobs with telecommuting potential and not scare away potential prospects.
Instead of stating you’re looking for a company that lets you work from home, you should instead state that you are looking for a company that promotes work life balance and offers flexible work options.
Most companies at the moment can more readily absorb requests like this as it is a growing trend for more employees to want to start work later or accumulate hours so they can take a few extra days off a month.
Negotiating a telecommuting position should only be done if it seems clear during the interview that you might get the job and that the company is open to the idea of telecommuting.
You can bring these to light by asking questions during the interview and asking them how they feel about the development in virtual work places, green initiatives and the company’s views on cutting costs.
You need to start understanding for yourself that telecommuting is not simply a perk for you. It is something that can be beneficial for all parties involved.
Employee satisfaction is a very important component for employee retention and productivity. Knowing that you are working for a company that believes in this philosophy at its core makes it easier for you to negotiate greater job flexibility later on.
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