Will Work from Home: Earn the Cash--Without the Commute

chapter one

Home Is Where the Job Is

In a perfect world, we’d all sleep late, stay in our pajamas on days when we’re worn out, and have the time to do exactly what we want. We’d never punch a time clock, attend another meeting, or pick up fast food on the way home from a Little League game. We’d have prepared a fresh salad, pasta sauce, and cupcakes in advance, because we’d have the time. But real life isn’t always conducive to such. Instead, we’re late to the meeting, we’re probably going to miss the first four innings of the game, and afterward, it’ll be burgers or pizza. Why can’t we turn that luxury-of-time fantasy into a reality?

Um . . . wait, we can. Suddenly, the choices we have to work from home, to set our own schedule, to be our own boss, and call the shots are exploding. To borrow from science, what we’re seeing is the equivalent of a Big Bang, and we’re dealing with an enormous money-making opportunity. There’s a whole new business universe out there, and it’s changing the way many women and men work and live.

The myth is that homemakers eat bonbons, watch soaps, and take care of their kids. The reality is that there’s a new revolution of people staying home these days and they’re doing a whole lot more than folding laundry; they are moms and dads, new grads and grandparents, skilled professionals, and high-powered executives.

These individuals are finding more energy, more time, more ways to make money, and yes, they’re doing it their way. So, if working from home is where your heart is, you are in the right place. It’s definitely the right time.

What’s This Big Bang of Opportunity?

According to the astronomers, the world as we know it, with all its galaxies, stars, and planets, started with a giant explosion. That set everything in motion and changed the universe. We don’t know for sure that this is the way it happened, but we do know that the earth is here and that it works because of certain forces like gravity and circling the sun.

Okay, the Big Bang may be a slight exaggeration, but what we’re seeing in society and the business world is a less galactic, but no less powerful, explosion of new ideas and attitudes caused by some dramatic trends that have been percolating underneath the surface for a decade or more.

These forces, or trends, are changing the way we think about work and its effect on our lives. They’re making it easier for all of us to work from home, or the park, or the local coffee shop. Alternative working styles are no longer seen as a cop-out or a dropout from the traditional economy. They are very much a part of it—the smart, savvy part for people who want work to support their lives, not the other way around.

Is it really possible? Can I really stay at home and make money? We’ve heard that question asked by thousands of women and men across the country. Our resounding answer is Yes! This is the perfect time, because the world of work is growing and changing. It’s less rigid and more fluid, less restrictive and more inclusive, less traditional and more innovative. Why?

It’s partly the trends, which we’ll explore a bit further. You’re probably already aware of some of them. Others may be news to you. Together, they’re creating that Big Bang of opportunity we mentioned—a new world with a galaxy of different job titles, small businesses, and ways to make money from home. These trends— and your own gumption—can take you out of the office, out of debt, out of your boring routine, and into a richer, fuller life.

Trends You Can Use to Change the World Right from Your Home

• Continuing advances in technology

• A global, changing workplace

• Emphasis on work/life balance

• A desire for more control

No matter what your needs, your skills, or your plans, these are trends to use. Let them encourage you. You’re not the only one wondering if there isn’t a better way to fit work into your life.

Others share your dreams. There’s a whole army of smart, determined people out there who are overcoming the obstacles and finding solutions. You’ll meet them as you journey through this guide.

There’s a growing movement, a revolution going on, right now. It’s real and wide and welcoming.

Tapping into the Trends

Whether you grew up with a laptop, or can remember rotary phones, computers have rocked your world. We live in an information age and a global economy because of technology. Think high-speed connections, the World Wide Web, PCs, cell phones, and Instant Imaging. We can connect and do business with people all over the world, from almost anywhere, including home.

In the ’80s, students began taking courses through distance learning. Now American surgeons train doctors in Third World countries using remote-controlled, computer-guided robots. You can learn how to design websites, a job that didn’t exist in the ’70s, as well as any other number of skills.

In the ’90s, companies harnessed the power of e-commerce. Want to buy a computer, new towels, a car seat, or a vacation? Shop online. Now workers travel and meet online as well. No need to waste time and money traveling to a meeting when they can share thoughts, images, voice, and text, in real time, by teleconferencing.

Millions of Americans research a medical diagnosis, apply for college, search for a job, plan a vacation, buy clothing, or find their dream house online. No doubt, you’re one of them.

Maybe you logged onto the Internet at school or the office, but it’s just as likely that you have searched, or shopped, from your den or bedroom. Ah, and there’s the difference. Technology isn’t new. It’s been around since before the Industrial Revolution. It’s just that now it has advanced to bring the machine home to us. More affordable and powerful computers and the spread of broadband have removed any technical barriers from working at home. We can change the world from our kitchens. We’re all geeks, wired and ready to work right here, right now. Thank goodness for technology.

’Net Explosion of Jobs

Not only has the Internet revolutionized the way we work and live, but it has created an alternative job market with new companies, new job descriptions, and new opportunities. Think chefs only work in restaurants? Meet Jennifer Beisser, CEO of ChefsLine, a business that supplies on demand culinary advice for busy cooks. Clients find the service online, but they use the phone line to connect with a chef who will share personalized advice, step-by-step cooking instructions, and those little touches that can turn an ordinary dinner into fine cuisine. That chef who’s providing the advice is doing so from his or her own home.

It’s for people staring at the same old chicken breast and thinking, ‘Oh please, not again,’ says Beisser. If they don’t have time to read a cookbook, they can call our service, which is like having a cookbook that talks to you and works with you. http://ChefsLine.com [inactive] is at the crossroads of connecting at-home cooks who want instant advice—and are willing to pay for it—with experts willing to dispense that advice from the home—and get paid to do so.

Are You Ready to Rocket?

Want to explore today’s work-from-home job market? It’s fast, easy, and so much bigger than you can imagine. Just let your fingers do the walking . . . across your keyboard. There’s no limit to your reach. The world is your oyster. You could become an Internet researcher for people without computer skills, the local beat reporter for a publication in another city, or take orders for flowers or clothing by phone. You could offer financial advice online, solve technical or tax problems, or sell anything from travel packages to baby clothes. Your boss might live across the country or even the world. No worries, mate. You’re connected.

It’s Not Our Fathers’ Business World

Big companies used to hire workers for the long haul. If you were loyal and productive, they’d promote you through the ranks and retire you with a gold watch and a pension. Now they’re busy competing in a global economy and you’re on your own. No more cradle to grave. Companies have slimmed down, automated, and closed factories. They’ve laid off workers, axed whole departments that didn’t fit their needs, and shipped jobs overseas to cut costs.

The Movement in Numbers

• More than 70 percent of Americans are Internet users and more than half of them have high-speed connections. Those numbers are growing and so are home workers.

• Roughly 20 percent of the American workforce engages in telework at least one day per month. According to polls, the number of employers who allowed it grew by 63 percent to 12.4 million in 2006.

• Several studies estimate that 100 million U.S. workers will telework, at least part-time, by 2010—from 14.7 million teleworking in 2006 to 100 million—that’s an explosion!

• Baby boomers are retiring in droves. The Telework Association and Council predicts an eight million shortfall of workers in the American market by 2014. Can you smell opportunity? You could fill the gap— from home.

• The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. The number of small business start-ups is growing. Small businesses are generating 60 to 80 percent of the new jobs in this country. That’s big business and a big invitation to launch your own.

If you’ve been in the workplace awhile, you’ve seen the upheaval, maybe even the pink slips. You know that a job or a company can change on a dime. If you’re a new grad, you’ve heard the drill—you’ll change jobs or careers up to seven or eight times in your working life.

There’s been a lot of change, unrest, and even heartbreak in this job market. You’ve read about or been affected by the headlines— the bankruptcies, mergers, massive layoffs, bubbles, busts, scandals, and fraud. But there’s positive news, too. Many American companies are leaner, smarter, and stronger, and so are American workers. We’ve learned to adapt, take on new skills, and negotiate for what we want. No more expectations for a lavish retirement send-off. We’re taking responsibility for our own careers.

Women are at the leading edge of shifting the career paradigm for everyone. They’re no longer acting as agents of their employers, but as career ‘self-agents,’ using flexible work arrangements and setting their own terms of employment as a way to make work ‘work,’ says professor Mary Shapiro, at the Simmons School of Management in Boston. Hooray for us!

We’re deciding when, where, and how much we want to work, depending on our economic needs and life stage. After a baby, a death, or a family crisis, women often cut back or rearrange their work schedules. There are circumstances when time, attention, and caring are more important than money. Only about 18 percent of us stop work altogether, however, according to a Simmons/HP study. That’s a significant figure. It tells us that more women are figuring out alternative ways to combine work and personal life, so they can do both. An obvious alternative is to work from home.

We All Need Balance

When women first entered the workforce in great numbers, we tried to do it the guys’ way. The commute, the nine to five, the navy suits, and the Day-Timer. Some of us made it to the corner office and beyond. A lot of us found great satisfaction in our jobs, but we also learned that the guys’ way only worked for guys. Most of them had wives at home taking care of the house and kids.

Are you tired of trying to do two jobs in different places in the same twenty-four hours, and feeling like you’re failing at both? Are you exhausted, frustrated, burned out, and stressed? We’re not talking about the kind of stress that a hot bath and candles is going to cure. We’re talking about the effects of living too long with all work and no play—the screaming, stomach-knotting, hair-pulling kind of stress that spikes our risk for heart attack and stroke. Stress kills. Medical researchers keep doing new studies to prove that point and we know it in our gut.

So what’s the answer? We don’t want to quit work. We like it and we’re good at it. What we want is time to go for a walk, read a book, spend time with our spouse, eat lunch with a friend, and watch our kid play baseball. While we’re at it, we want to see the whole game . . . and the fourth-grade play . . . the school awards ceremony . . . our best friend’s wedding rehearsal . . . and our parents’ anniversary dinner. We want to be there for our lives—not just work through them—and we deserve to be. That isn’t going to happen if we’re chained to our desks, out of town, stuck in traffic, or working late through the events that matter.

What we want and need is some kind of balance—a balance of work and life. Maybe it’s our influence on the workplace, or maybe it’s a changing society, but men have taken a hard look at the rat race, too. They’ve seen that in working long hours, traveling, transferring, and fighting their way up the ladder, they’ve missed a lot of ball games, too. Not to mention family dinners, vacations, and friendships. Is it worth it?

No. What good is a big salary if you never have time to enjoy it?

Companies Are Listening

Changing attitudes are causing dramatic shifts in the traditional workplace according to the Families and Work Institute. The old command-and-control style of authority, which worked when companies nurtured and groomed employees for their entire careers, no longer flies. Smart employers are figuring out that when employees are valued as people with real lives, not just time-clock punchers, they are happier and more productive.

Work environments are becoming more supportive. Ideas like flexible working hours, job sharing, onsite child-care centers, company gyms, and personal days off are commonplace in many companies now. These kinds of benefits are making it easier and more enjoyable for workers. They also make good sense for employers. Replacing an employee is expensive. Between the downtime when the job is unfilled and the costs of recruiting, hiring, and training a replacement, the price of replacing someone runs up to a third of an employee’s annual salary, according to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management. It’s cheaper to grant a few reasonable requests. So if you’re a solid performer who wants to work from home, now’s the time to ask. More bosses are listening.

They’ll be listening even harder soon. There’s an impending shortage of workers as baby boomers start retiring, and the younger generations don’t have the numbers to fill all the jobs. They need you. That’s the best time to negotiate. You’ve got leverage.

Companies are already discussing ways to keep the brain power of baby boomers on the payroll either by rehiring them as consultants where they set their own schedules, or letting them work part-time. The bottom line is that the American workforce is going to need everybody. Whether you want to find a job, change your job, go part-time, work from home, or combine work with college or retirement, your chances of finding a position you can work on your terms have never been better.

Teleworking Works

Teleworking—people working remotely from the office at home— is an idea whose time has come. Sure, bosses were skeptical at first. If I send them home, how will I know they aren’t napping or at the mall? It didn’t happen. People appreciated the freedom and convenience. They liked the trust. Without interruptions they often worked better. Research backs that up. Studies show that teleworkers usually are more productive. They are happier and more engaged in their work.

Happy at Home

We can all learn from nurses. For years, nurses worked long hours at low salaries. Now there’s a national shortage. The Department of Labor predicts that we will need one million more nurses by 2012. Guess what? As hospitals had to compete for a smaller pool of workers, these workers became more valuable.

Hospitals raised salaries and increased benefits such as signing bonuses, tuition reimbursement, and flexible scheduling. Many nurses work three 12-hour shifts a week and receive full-time health care and vacation benefits. That gives them four days a week to raise children, work a second job, explore a hobby, or take a class. Some nursing moms only work weekends or nights, so their spouses can care for the children and they don’t have to spend on day care.

Hospitals are paying to retrain older nurses and bring them back into the workforce, and allow others to shorten their hours as they age.

Employees gain, but so do companies. Sending people home to work means less office space to buy or lease and fewer utilities to pay. That improves profits.

It’s also better for the environment, according to the Clean Air Campaign. Carpooling, van-pooling and mass-transit all decrease traffic and pollution, but teleworking takes cars off the highway altogether.

Lawmakers enacted the Telework Enhancement Act of 2007, which says that all future government employees be eligible to telework, in part to decrease traffic in Washington. What they saw outside their government windows was gridlock.

The idea is just beginning to catch on, with the Patent and Trademark Office leading the way. It has nearly 700 patent examiners working from home at least four days a week. It plans to increase that to 3,000 teleworkers by 2011. According to the Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on demonstrating the tangible value of telework, the average federal employee who works two days a week at home would reclaim 98 hours (now lost to commuting) and save $55.52 a month (with gas averaging $3 a gallon). Federal jobs can be found in all states—and the government is facing a worker shortage as well. Anyone care to apply and volunteer to work from home?

You don’t have to know these trends to work from home, but doesn’t it add to your confidence? There are going to be more people working from home in the future. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be one of them.

One Solution for Many Needs

The beauty of this Will Work from Home movement is that one solution is the answer to so many different scenarios.

Not working isn’t an option. We need to support or totally earn our household budgets. We just want a better way of doing it so that we can feel more successful at both. Wouldn’t working at home simplify our lives, save us time and possibly money? Probably.

If you interrupted a career you love to stay home and raise your children, your issues are slightly different. You plan to continue your career someday, but you need a way to keep your contacts fresh and your skills sharp. You need a flexible job at home.

An at-home job is also a solution for fathers who want to get off the corporate treadmill, take more control of their careers, and play a greater role in parenting.

It’s an answer for singles and couples without children who want more freedom to pursue hobbies, volunteer in the community, or travel. It’s ideal for those with health challenges that preclude them from working outside the home.

If you’re a baby boomer who is ready to lose the five-day week, nine-to-five schedule, but not ready to rock on the front porch, keep reading. A job at home or your own business could take you closer to your grandchildren or the golf course. It could offer work that is more fun or challenging and grow your retirement income.

Some of you may desperately need to take time off from the office routine to care