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The simplest definition of a Telecommuting Job is a job that allows you to work from the comfort of your home or from a location other than the office anywhere between 1 to 5 days a week.
Telecommuting Jobs can be broken into 2 main categories:
- Telecommuting Jobs where you work full-time for a company as an employee. This means that your employment with the company is indefinite, much like a regular office job.
- Telecommuting Jobs where you work as an independent contractor (freelancer).This means you are hired by clients on a project to project basis whereby your services are no longer needed when the project is complete
Both methods have their pro’s and con’s which we will discuss below.
Telecommuting As A Full-Time Employee
Working for a company full-time means you are on a fixed payroll and have the same benefits as an in office employee (usually). These benefits can include healthcare, learning and training subsidization and employer superannuation contribution.
This type of telecommuting job also has the benefit that you do not need to go job hunting every few months and that you can plan your finances in the long term fairly consistently.
The possible disadvantages though of this type of telecommuting job is that the requirements to apply can be more strict. For instance, some full-time telecommuting positions require the applicant to be either within the same country or within reasonable travel distance.
The reason for this can range anywhere from legal reasons to company preference. Due to the nature of some full-time positions, companies may prefer that their telecommuting employees be within travel distance in-case they need to attend occasional meetings or specialized in house training.
These kinds of full-time telecommuting positions are ideal for people who don’t want the hassle of having to worry about networking, finding projects or dealing with legal or accounting issues.
For people who simply want a taste of what it is like to work from home, finding a full-time telecommuting position with a company is recommended.
Telecommuting As An Independent Contractor (Freelancer)
Working as an independent contractor means you are paid on either an hourly basis or a per project basis. You will also be required to handle your own legal and accounting issues which can include taxes and work contracts.
While this can be perceived as a con by some, the pro’s of being self employed include being able to work as much or as little as desired in order to meet financial goals.
Being your own boss means that you are in charge of yourself and therefore get to dictate your own work schedule according to your preference.
Being self employed in most cases also means that you are not bound to any specific location and you can live and work wherever you want, as long as you can meet the clients project expectations.
Not having a consistent income can be a worry for some, however there are strategies that you can apply as a freelancer to ensure that you always have some income flowing into your bank account.
Telecommuting as an independent contractor is not recommended for people who don’t feel comfortable with self management.
It is recommended that people who intend on telecommuting should start as full-time telecommuters with a single company. This is so they can get used to working from home without having to worry about fluctuating income or handling tax and legal responsibilities.
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Yasuo Long believes that all employees should have the right to design their lifestyle according to their needs in order to maintain their health, their relationships and their happiness. In pursuit of this, he quit the 9-to-5 and became a telecommuter to give himself the time and mental freedom to discover what it really means to live with direction and purpose.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Sounds good – at first, after a while there is one big concern from my side: How save is the payement or contract. I ‘ve made all kind of bad experiments with the payment of costumers, even when they live in the same city. How could this be working here? For example when the costumer is living in a different country. In some countries this will be extremely difficult.
Hi Mathias,
Yeah I understand what you mean. Making sure you actually get paid and that you get paid ON TIME is an issue and has been an issue for me. One of the good things with sites like Elance is that they have this thing called Escrow.
Basically how it works is that the person posting the project has to show that they have the funds to pay you BEFORE the project starts. This is done by having the funds placed in a third party account (this is supplied by Elance themselves). You can refuse to start the job until the funds have been placed in the third party account.
For instance, I had a client in the UK who I wouldn’t start work with until he placed the funds into the account. From there, you can set payment milestones whereby you get paid at specific points in the project. These can include a starting fee, then payment at each milestone. I find this a much better approach than simply doing the whole project and then having a client delay payment for months.
Using a third party service like Elance or Guru with Escrow also ensures that you are protected in the event a client tries to “screw you over” by withholding funds even if you have completed a project to their requirements.