Tele-commuting is good for the company, but what about the employee?

    Should businesses contract out work to telecommuters?  The statistics are very supportive of the idea that  when a company that cuts down on expenses, their net profit rises.

The company has lower overhead, no employee taxes, no equipment to buy for the employee, no health insurance, there is only an upside for hiring employees as private contractors.

 

What is the story for the employees?  They can choose where to work, most choose to work at home, designating a place or a corner in the house to work from, and hope that it is quiet enough to get work done.  They have to pay their own taxes, health insurance, pension plan, and register as a business so that they can receive money legally.

What are the pros for the employee?  They can set their own hours, theoretically.  Well, I have been working for 5 years as a telecommuter, teaching English, and there are advantages, but also disadvantages.  One benefit that has been touted is that telecommuters set their own hours. It is not exactly true.  I, in general, set  my hours, but then maybe there won't be students at all the times I would like to work.  If I am not working a certain amount of time, and because I'm not on a salary,  I only get paid for the time I'm on-line teaching.   The telecommuter has to be very strict, and when there is a student, everything else has to wait.  No interruptions of any kind.  Well, when there is an air raid siren like we had in July in Israel, so yes, there was an interruption, but I just picked up my laptop and moved into the protected space in my apartment,  But barring that, all my attention goes toward my student on-line. 

In the office or in the school, you have camaraderie.  In the Telecommuting world this  is gone. and  there is no interpersonal interaction between employees. Yes, there is a Facebook group, but it is not the same. If you like to "chat" between classes, so then this work model is not for you. 

The money.  Yes, we had to get to that.  An independent contractor can set the amount of money, but now there is a lot of competition.  If you don't set your price low enough, then there might not be enough work than at a higher price.  Other websites that provide the same service could set their price lower and for a while at least, there won't be as many hours. 

So the telecommuter ends up being under-employed.  To pick up the slack, I do other things to make money, (blogging, teaching music, haircuts) but not everyone can do that.  

In the final analysis, the decision to work as a telecommuter requires a lot of faith, that you will succeed, but how long will it take?  

Rachael Alice Orbach - Professional English Teacher