THE Work At Home Blog

More and more companies are seeing the benefits of offering work at home options to their employees.

According to a report at MarketWatch, Hilton Hotels Corporation is rolling out a flexible home based work at home program for reservation agents. Because the program is so desirable to prospective employees, Hilton will be able to recruit the most experienced and talented workers.

“Today’s consumer demands a heightened level of customer service, and HRCC delivers with motivated home-based sales and service professionals,” said Russ Olivier, senior vice president, HRCC. “Today, more than 800 Hilton@Home agents book global travel and provide customer care for more than 3,000 hotels with 500,000 rooms among nine brands that comprise the Hilton Family of Hotels. This unique career offering from a world-class organization attracts experienced and educated professionals who may not otherwise consider a customer contact position in the typical call center environment.”

Work at home agents will be able to choose their own work schedules online, 24/7. This allows many people who would not consider working in a call center environment to consider this type of job. Many employees are stay-at-home parents and those caring for others in their home.

JetBlue has had a successful telecommuting policy for many years.  Eighty percent of JetBlue’s reservation agents work from home. The company reports that allowing employees to telecommute has not only saved them money and expensive office space… it’s also increased productivity.

‘’We initiated our at-home program when we first started the airline,'’ says Margot Miller, manager of reservations at JetBlue, which is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. ‘’Having come from a call center environment prior to my JetBlue experience, people tend to be a little more productive in their own environment… and most people like to work at home because it saves time and gas, and it’s easier on their families.'’

In a recent news report Virginia Governor Tim Kaine was quoted as having asked all state agencies to consider tele-working. He says it would help to defray rising fuel costs and traffic congestion. According to the article, “At the Department of Taxation, nearly 600 employees tele-work. The government estimates that saves more than 45,000 gallons of fuel annually.”

Some companies have decided to close their offices and go completely virtual.  PC World recently reported that Chorus, a provider of clinical, practice management and financial software for health care providers, closed its Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., headquarters in early June and its other office, in Stafford, Texas (outside of Houston), in early July; that means all of the company’s 35 employees and full-time consultants work at home.

Chorus CIO, Rick Boyd stated that the company decided to close its offices to save money (an estimated $400,000 a year) and spare employees the hassle and rising cost of commuting.

Companies that have successful remote work programs have work at home policies in place.  Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts created a flexible work arrangement worksheet that’s designed to help managers evaluate if an employee’s job tasks can be performed remotely. The worksheet also establishes an agreement between an employee and manager about the employee’s job performance and productivity while working remotely.

Marvin Luz, vice president of client services at Chorus, says his group had specific, common-sense rules it had to follow. For example, they can’t have TVs or stereos on in the background. Nor can they eat while on the phone with customers. These rules are meant to send the message that even though employees work from the casual confines of their homes, they must maintain a certain level of professional decorum while on the clock.

The corporate world is definitely coming around to the idea of telecommuting and this is good news for those looking to work from home and, even better, it’s great news for the environment.

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Yes, there are! Many companies have realized the benefits of employing home based customer service agents. It’s a win-win situation; the company saves on overhead costs, can pull from a national pool of candidates and the employee enjoys a 15 second commute.

Work At Home Jobs On The Rise

In his blog post on work from home internet jobs, Dr. Al Lee, Phd. (AKA Dr. Salary) he sites some interesting statistics from an article on CSMonitor.com. “There are reportedly 110,000 work at home customer service jobs in the U.S., and 80% of these work at home internet jobs are staffed by women. IDC, a market research company in Framingham, Mass, told CSmonitor.com that these legitimate work at home jobs are ‘expected to triple to 328,000 by 2010.’”

There is a trend change happening here with companies that used to outsource home based customer service jobs to places like India bringing those jobs back home to the U.S. This new trend is called homeshoring or inshoring. Tim Whipple, vice president of agent services for LiveOps, told CSmonitor.com, “Not every type of call works well when you send it to India and the Philippines.” Michael Brown, a Los Angeles customer-service consultant, adds, “You can’t easily train 5,000 people at a call center in Bangalore. Here you have more control.”

Home Based Customer Service Jobs Require Skilled Applicants

Alpine Access, which employs 7,500 people, received more than 200,000 applications in the past 12 months, says CEO Chris Carrington. The average age of his workers is 41, and 80 percent have some form of college education. About 10 percent hold an advanced degree.

One company, Home-Base USA, specializes in hiring military spouses, enabling them to keep a job wherever military postings take them.

Airlines such as Southwest and Jet Blue both use many work-at-home mothers, Mr. Brown says. Carrington employs people with disabilities, too.

Where Do You Find Work At Home Customer Service Jobs?

In addition to having a list of companies that do offer home based customer service jobs, our website also often has work at home customer service jobs in our database.

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Looking for a work at home job? I’ll give you 5 good reasons why you should consider starting a home business instead.

1. Telecommuting jobs are rare- are you? The only real work at home jobs out there are for highly specialized skills like programming, translation, transcription and such. What they all have in common is that they require special training and employers that hire telecommuters always require experienced candidates- experts in their field. Employers just don’t hire people to do things like typing from their homes.

A home business can be anything you want it to be. You get to follow your passion and do something that you truly enjoy. I think that if we all couldn’t wait to leap out of bed each morning because we loved what we do, the world would be a much happier place. So, unless you have a passion for learning MYSQL / SQL database structure or how to translate medical documents from English to Japanese, a home business can offer endless possibilities in an area that interests you.

2. Telecommuting jobs don’t afford as much flexibility as you might think. Your boss picks your clients and coworkers, not you. You may or may not like the people you find yourself working with day after day, which can be like a slow form of torture.

With your business you choose who your client will be. Maybe you want to start a business that has to do with kids and all your clients have kids at home with them. They would be more likely to understand and appreciate kid noise in the background while on the phone with you. You get to create your own “company culture”.

3. You’re not in control of your job security. Corporate downsizing will still apply and even if you have that rare and special skill that they once found indispensable, you might find yourself back on the job search track. Also, unless you have a written agreement that your telecommuting arrangement is set in stone, employers can pull you back into the office at their discretion.

4. Big brother will be there looking over your shoulder. Employers need to know that their employees are being productive. They just can’t help themselves. This puts more pressure on you to meet deadlines, to prove that you will be at least as efficient (if not more efficient) that your on-site coworkers. Even companies that champion telecommuting often have strict checks and balances to ensure that you’re not lying around watching television or heading off to the beach. Supervisors are often suspicious to the point of micromanaging their telecommuters.

You just can’t afford to be lured away by the many distractions of the home office. The television beckons, the kids want your attention, you just want to get a load of laundry in… This is not to say that you can succumb to these distractions as a home business owner, but the difference is that you call the shots.

With your own home business, you are Big Brother, Big Sister, The Big Cheese- your own boss. You set the goals and the pace and it’s up to no one but you how and when you meet them.

5. And last, but most important… when you are a home business owner you get to take a vacation whenever you want. Could there be a better reason to stop looking for a telecommute job and start a home business?

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I just added a new section at the site that lists companies that offer work at home transcription jobs. Most of them are not medical transcription, but rather legal, media or other types of transcription.

I’ll be adding more companies as I find them, so check back often. If you know of additional companies that should be added, let me know by leaving a comment here or through the website.

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I’ve got 2 fun contests going at my Work At Home Forums:

On Wednesday, July 2nd - we will be giving away $5 to many posters all throughout the day….. you just need to be on the boards actively making posts and we could Surprise YOU with $5 to your paypal account…..

This runs all day and nite till midnight Pacific Time

Hop on and post……

Only people who are making posts will be winners…

And for the next 2 weeks, we have The Photo Caption Contest. the person who comes up with the funniest caption for this month’s picture will get a free home business ad ($75 value!). Since this is my party, I get to decide what’s “funny” Entries must be posted by 4pm PST Monday, July 14th.

Only one entry per person, but if you come up with something funnier you can edit your post during the contest period.

Here’s this month’s picture.

These are just a couple things we have going on at the Forums. Come join in the discussions..and promote your business while you’re at it. It’s a also a great place to ask about work at home companies and jobs that you are considering.

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I recently discovered Peter Lee’s Work At Home Ideas Blog. Among other great tidbits, his blog is chock full of really excellent link building and SEO strategies. His latest post is inviting you to review his blog in exchange for a link to your site. Sounds good to me….I like linking to other useful work at home sites anyway. I like it even better when they link back to me   Read his post and review his blog.

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While I’m on the treadmill at the gym I like to channel surf. The other day I came across an interview with Denise Richards and something she said piqued my interest. Normally I would have no interest whatsoever in hearing what Denise Richards (or ex Charlie Sheen for that matter) had to say but she was talking about working at home.

Evidently the actress, who has had more than her share of bad press, is producing and starring in a new reality show about her life with her children, Sam and Lola as well as other family members.

The clip showed Richards and her kids at their home, which is also home to lots of dogs and even a pig.

According to Denise, “…being a single working mom, to be able to work at home was fantastic and a blessing.”

It seems to me that under all the gossip and mud-slinging, she is just a person who wants many of the same things we do. It’s refreshing to see a down-to-earth side of someone who has been a constant source of tabloid fodder. Good for you Denise!

Not everyone agrees with me though….Hal Boedeker, The TV Guy, has a different view of what she’s doing.

She may very well be desperately trying to give her career a much needed boost, but I still think that the fact that she will in fact be working from home and spending time with her kids is admirable.

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My husband will have 30 years with his company soon (within a few years) which has had us toying with the idea of his retirement.  He really is too young to retire (not even 50 yet), so he’s been bouncing ideas around of things he might do when the time does come.

When I first realized that his imminent retirement was looming on the horizon I must admit I was less than thrilled.  The idea of him puttering around while I still had to work didn’t sound very appealing.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my DH beyond all reason but I do cherish my quiet, uninterrupted workdays with nothing but my ipod and my kitties to keep me company.  With the exception of summertime (when my work ethic goes out the window and I choose to spend my days at the beach), my workday is quality quiet time and I am super-productive in this environment.

One idea DH was kicking around was to become an accountant and work from home.  Now, unless he’s planning on turning our older daughter’s bedroom into an office (which I just recently re-decorated as a guest room now that she’s off to college) it means that he’d be sharing my office (and my desk).  Hmm…I don’t think so.  Even now, the dear man tends to leave piles of notes, bills and other detritus all over my desk whenever he sits there.  When I think of having to share this space on a daily basis, it brings to mind the prophecy from Harry Potter, “none shall live while the other survives”.

All that aside, this all reminds me that there are more Dads these days who are choosing to be at home with their kids either as full-time caregivers or as work at home Dads.  I came across a great post by a work at home Dad today. He generates enough income from home to allow for his wife to choose not to work.  What a great situation!
In my husband’s situation, our kids will be grown by the time he makes the transition but how wonderful that he’ll have that choice.  And hey, maybe by then I will decide to retire and he can have the desk all to himself!

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Whenever I am searching for work at home articles for my monthly ezine I never fail to come across a good number of articles on the topic of how to stay motivated when you work from home. Most of them seem like a regurgitation of the same old stock article, but every now and then one stands out. Today I found one that stands out. It’s Beating the Bored Room: How to Stay Motivated When You Work From Home.

What sets this post apart from the myriad bland posts is that it takes into consideration what drives you. Post author Simone guides you through questions to help you figure out whether you are guided by internal forces (self-motivated) or external forces (for those of us who need a little more help staying focused).

She also offers practical ideas for each type on a variety of work at home issues. It’s a useful and refreshing take on the challenges of working at home.

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Softball season is starting and it pretty much takes over my life at this time of year. My husband and I coach and I’m on the board so it’s hectic right now.  It’s a time for crockpot meals and endless loads of laundry.
As demanding as it is, I just love being involved. I get to know all of the girls and it’s fun to coach with my DH (most of the time).

Before I worked at home, I wasn’t able to do anything like this. This is why I feel so fortunate to have the flexibility to be more involved with my kids.

Well, gotta run….We’ve got our first practice today so I’d better find something to put in the crockpot!

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