Category: Working Tips

Iceland Cuts Working Hours With No Productivity Loss, Same Pay

Iceland has achieved the holy grail for working stiffs: same pay for shorter hours.Results from two trials of reduced hours showed no productivity loss or decline in service levels, while employees reported less stress and an improved work-life balance, researchers at U.K.-based think tank Autonomy and Iceland’s Association for Sustainable Democracy said in a report.

Achieving shorter hours with sustained productivity and service levels involved rethinking how tasks were completed, according to the report. That included shortening meetings or replacing them with emails, cutting out unnecessary tasks, and rearranging shifts.

The trials, conducted from 2015 to 2019, cut hours to about 35 a week from 40 with no reduction in pay. Involving about 2,500 workers, equivalent to more than 1% of the Nordic country’s working population, results showed their “wellbeing dramatically increased,” the researchers said. Since then, 86% of Iceland’s entire working population have either moved to shorter hours or can negotiate to do so.

In Nordic peer Finland, Prime Minister Sanna Marin, 35, has suggested a four-day work week is worth looking into, saying employees deserve some of the trickle-down benefits of improved productivity. Even so, her government is currently not working on such policy.

Workers went from a 40-hour weekly schedule to 35- or 36-hour weekly schedules without a reduction in pay. The trials were launched after agitation from labor unions and grassroots organizations that pointed to Iceland’s low rankings among its Nordic neighbors when it comes to work-life balance.

Workers across a variety of public- and private-sector jobs participated in the trials. They included people working in day cares, assisted living facilities, hospitals, museums, police stations and Reykjavik government offices.

Participants reported back on how they reduced their hours. A common approach was to make meetings shorter and more focused. One workplace decided that meetings could be scheduled only before 3 p.m. Others replaced them altogether with email or other electronic correspondence.

Some workers started their shifts earlier or later, depending on demand. For example, at a day care, staff took turns leaving early as children went home. Offices with regular business hours shortened those hours, while some services were moved online.

Some coffee breaks were shortened or eliminated. The promise of a shorter workweek led people to organize their time and delegate tasks more efficiently, the study found.

Working fewer hours resulted in people feeling more energized and less stressed. They spent more time exercising and seeing friends, which then had a positive effect on their work, they said.

By:

Source: Iceland Cuts Working Hours With No Productivity Loss, Same Pay – Bloomberg

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Critics:

Many countries regulate the work week by law, such as stipulating minimum daily rest periods, annual holidays, and a maximum number of working hours per week. Working time may vary from person to person, often depending on economic conditions, location, culture, lifestyle choice, and the profitability of the individual’s livelihood.

For example, someone who is supporting children and paying a large mortgage might need to work more hours to meet basic costs of living than someone of the same earning power with lower housing costs. In developed countries like the United Kingdom, some workers are part-time because they are unable to find full-time work, but many choose reduced work hours to care for children or other family; some choose it simply to increase leisure time.

Standard working hours (or normal working hours) refers to the legislation to limit the working hours per day, per week, per month or per year. The employer pays higher rates for overtime hours as required in the law. Standard working hours of countries worldwide are around 40 to 44 hours per week (but not everywhere: from 35 hours per week in France to up to 112 hours per week in North Korean labor camps) and the additional overtime payments are around 25% to 50% above the normal hourly payments. Maximum working hours refers to the maximum working hours of an employee. The employee cannot work more than the level specified in the maximum working hours law.

References

Married to the Job: How a Long-Hours Working Culture Keeps People Single and Lonely

illustration of person with head on their desk at work, unable to think clearly

Laura Hancock started practising yoga when she worked for a charity. It was a job that involved long hours and caused a lot of anxiety. Yoga was her counterbalance. “It saved my life, in a way,” she says.

Yoga brought her a sense of peace and started her journey of self-inquiry; eventually, she decided to bring those benefits to others by becoming a yoga teacher. She studied for more than eight years before qualifying. That was about 10 years ago; since then, she has been teaching in Oxford, her home town.

At first, the work felt like a privilege, even though she was working a lot and not earning much. “There was a sense that, if you gave it your all and you did it with integrity and love and all those things, then it would eventually work out for you.”

But recently she had a moment of realisation. “I can’t afford my rent, I have no savings, I have no partner, I have no family. I’m 38 and most of my friends have families; they’re buying houses,” she says. “There is a lot of grief around that. I feel like I’ve just landed on Earth, like a hard crash on to the ground, and am looking around and feeling quite lonely.”

Hancock is one of the many people in recent years to recognise that they have devoted themselves to their work and neglected everything else that might give their life meaning. For workers across many sectors, long, irregular hours, emotional demands and sometimes low rates of pay mean it is increasingly hard to have a life outside of work – and particularly hard to sustain relationships.

Long before Covid locked us all in our homes, alone or otherwise, the evidence was pointing out repeatedly that loneliness and singledom are endemic in this phase of capitalism. Fewer people are marrying and those who are are doing so later; we are having less sex. A 2018 study found that 2.4 million adults in Britain “suffer from chronic loneliness”. Another projection found that nearly one in seven people in the UK could be living alone by 2039 and that those living alone are less financially secure.

For Hancock, turning her yoga practice into her career meant giving up much of her social life. She was “knackered” at the end of a long day of practice and teaching – and the expectation that she would continue her education through pricey retreats meant, at times, that she was spending more than she was making. It was at the end of a four-hour workshop in a local church in 2018 that the penny dropped. A student came up to her and said: “You are not well. We need to go to the doctor.”

Her GP found infections in her ear and her chest. She spent seven weeks recovering in bed, which gave her a lot of time, alone at home, to reconsider her career and face the reality of exactly how vulnerable she was.

Lauren Smith*, 34, a teacher in the west of England, was given a warning by a colleague before she applied for her postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE). “It’s going to be the most intense year of your life,” they said. At the time, she thought she was ready for it, but it took its toll on her relationship. “I remember coming home and just … not even being able to talk to him.”

Things did not improve when she started working as a teacher. “There’s this culture in education where it’s almost competitive about how much you work,” she says. The social relationships at school become almost a substitute for a personal life; she briefly dated another teacher. However, apart from “the odd fling here or there”, she says, “in terms of actually dating, I find that my enthusiasm or my energy for it …” She trails off.

The strain on their personal lives has made Smith and Hancock look much more closely at the sustainability of their working lives. Hancock is one of the founding members of the new yoga teachers’ union, a branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB), the union representing gig economy workers and those in traditionally non-unionised workplaces. Smith is active in the National Education Union, but is considering a career change. “The demands on teachers have just increased so much and, with the funding cuts, I’m now doing the job of three people,” she says.

“Everything else you love about your job has been pushed to the wayside and it’s all about those exam results,” says Smith. The number one thing she would like “would be more planning time in my job. Maybe I could have one less class, which is 30 kids’ worth of data that I don’t have to do and it means I can put my mental energy into the students themselves and have the time and the headspace to do other things.”

It is not that she is hanging everything on the hope of a romantic relationship – and she does not want children – but nevertheless Smith longs for time and energy to devote to the people she cares about, rather than her job. “In the nine years that I have been a teacher, it has got harder and harder. If things don’t change, I can’t see myself staying in this job beyond two years from now.”

If work is getting in the way of our relationships, it is not an equally distributed problem. The decline in marriage rates “is a class-based affair”, say the law professors Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, the authors of the book Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking the American Family. The well-off are more likely to marry and have more stable families – and the advantages of this family structure are conferred on their offspring. For those in a more precarious financial situation, it can often be easier to stay single.

Economic stability provides “a better foundation for loyalty, one based on relationship satisfaction and happiness rather than economic dependency or need”, found the academics Pilar Gonalons-Pons and David Calnitsky when they studied the impact of an experiment with universal basic income in Canada. If we were not so worried about paying the bills, perhaps we would have the time and mental space for better relationships.

In an increasingly atomised world, being in a couple is how most people have access to care and love. The status of being partnerless, or, as the writer Caleb Luna has put it, being “singled” – an active process that means single people are denied affection or care because they are reserved for people in couples – can leave many people without life-sustaining care. As Luna writes, the culture of “self-love”, in which we are encouraged to love, support and sustain ourselves, leaves out those for whom this is not a choice.

Care is overwhelmingly still provided by partners in a romantic couple or other family members: in the UK, 6.5 million people – one in eight adults – provide care for a sick or disabled family member or partner. The charity Carers UK estimates that, during the pandemic in 2020, 13.6 million people were carers. What happens to those, however, without partners or family members to provide care? It becomes someone’s job – a job that can end up placing enormous stress on the personal life of whoever is doing it.

Care is often outsourced to paid workers – many of whom are immigrants – some of whom have left their own partners and children behind in order to go elsewhere for work, says Prof Laura Briggs, of the women, gender and sexuality studies department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The harsh crackdowns on migration to the US and the UK have left these workers in a uniquely vulnerable position. They would “work for almost any wage, no matter how low, to support family and household members back home, without the entanglements that come with dependents who are physically present, such as being late to work after a child’s doctor’s appointment, say, or the sick days that children or elders have so many of,” wrote Briggs in her 2017 book How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics. In other words, with their family far away, the worker is free to devote all their time – and their care – to their employer.

It is not just care work that is blending the boundaries between people’s work lives and personal lives. In many sectors, offices have been designed to look, feel and act like a home, to keep employees there for longer – with free food available 24/7, areas to rest and play with Lego, office pets, informal dress codes and even showers to create a feeling that work is a “family”.

When I met Karn Bianco while I was researching my book on how work is increasingly taking over our lives, he was a freelance computer game programmer who had tired of the long hours. “Your life became just work,” he said. “You would go in at 9am and would work through until 10 or 11 at night sometimes – you could get an evening meal there.” It was fine for a while, he said. “When I was an intern, I was single, I knew I was only in that desk for a year. I had no responsibilities, no dependents.”

But as Bianco, who is now 31 and living in Glasgow, got older and entered into a relationship, it became impossible to deal with. “I even tried to start coups of sorts,” he said, trying to convince his colleagues to walk out en masse at 5pm on the dot. But it did not take, so he was stuck trying to improve his own conditions, going home at 5pm on his own – something that was possible, he noted, only because he had worked his way up the ladder. Eventually, Bianco went freelance, then left the industry entirely.

Bianco is one of the founding members of the gaming industry branch of the IWGB, which is fighting the long hours in the sector. Traditionally, there was a crunch time, when, just before a product launch, programmers were expected to put in 100-hour weeks with no extra pay. Now, as games are connected to the internet and consumers expect constant updates, crunch time is pretty much all the time. “They try to instil that feeling of: ‘You have to do this for the family [company],’ rather than: ‘This is a transaction. You pay me and I work,’” said Austin Kelmore, 40, when I met him along with Bianco.

But what happens when the “family” is gone and the workers are left on their own? Layoffs are common in the games industry – so common that one observer created a website to track them. (In 2020, there were an estimated 2,090 job losses as part of mass redundancies in the gaming industry.) When Kelmore was laid off, his partner’s income was a lifesaver, but it made him think: ‘Do I want to do games any more?’ He is still in the industry and active in the union working against what he says is a systematic issue with work-life balance. “Without unions, we had no idea what our rights were,” Bianco says. “We were working illegal hours and didn’t even know it. Most of my time at home during some of those weeks was just sleeping.”

The pandemic, of course, has made many people face up to loneliness in a way they would not have done in the pre-lockdown world. One-third of women and one-fifth of men report feeling lonely or isolated in this period.

Ruth Jones* trained as a librarian in Canada and moved around from job to job – nearly once a year for 14 years. “Finding work, and especially having to take whatever work I can get, has definitely been a factor in why I haven’t dated much at 31,” she says via email. “How do you date someone wholeheartedly knowing that, at some point in a year, max, you’re going to have to make a decision about someone taking or not taking a job, being split up, doing long distance?”

A chronic illness means that, recently, she has been out of the workplace, stuck at home. She has realised the way in which our obsession with work is entangled with our romantic relationships. On dating apps and sites, “most people identify strongly with their jobs”, she says. Where does this leave someone who is unable to work long-term? “At a minimum, I am supposed to feel guilty for being unproductive, useless – and live a frugal, monk-like life,” she says.

She does not mind that she might not be able physically to do the same things as a potential partner, but she often finds that they do, especially as the apps are designed to pass judgment on people immediately. All of this means it feels impossible to find someone with whom to connect. “I feel like I’m not looking for a unicorn, I’m looking for a gold Pegasus.”

The apps often feel like another job to take on, says Smith. She will click on the dating site, flick through some profiles, maybe match with someone and exchange a couple of messages. Then a week of teaching goes by in a blur and, she says: “You have a look and you’ve missed the boat.” She often ends up deciding to spend her spare time with friends, or catching up on rest. “It just feels like another admin task: ‘Ugh, I’ve got to reply to another email now. I’ve got to put some data into a form.’” And, of course, those dating apps are big business, profiting from workers being kept single by their jobs. In 2021, the founder of the dating app Bumble was lauded as the “world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire”.

Hancock, who works in a deeply solitary industry, has found the process of organising with her union enormously helpful. “I remember being in this room and hearing so many different people from different industries talking and realising that we shared so much,” she says. “I wasn’t alone.”

It is through the union that she hopes to be able to change not just her own situation, but also the industry. After all, as the games workers learned, going home early by yourself – or leaving the industry – might be a temporary solution, but the real challenge is ending the culture of overwork. Perhaps it is time to revisit the original wants of International Workers’ Day, which called for the day to be split into eight-hour chunks: for work, for rest and time for “what we will”, whether that is romance, family, friends or otherwise.

By: Sarah Jaffe

Source: Married to the Job: How a Long-Hours Working Culture Keeps People Single and Lonely

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References

Kivimäki, Mika; Virtanen, Marianna; Kawachi, Ichiro; Nyberg, Solja T; Alfredsson, Lars; Batty, G David; Bjorner, Jakob B; Borritz, Marianne; Brunner, Eric J; Burr, Hermann; Dragano, Nico; Ferrie, Jane E; Fransson, Eleonor I; Hamer, Mark; Heikkilä, Katriina; Knutsson, Anders; Koskenvuo, Markku; Madsen, Ida E H; Nielsen, Martin L; Nordin, Maria; Oksanen, Tuula; Pejtersen, Jan H; Pentti, Jaana; Rugulies, Reiner; Salo, Paula; Siegrist, Johannes; Steptoe, Andrew; Suominen, Sakari; Theorell, Töres; Vahtera, Jussi; Westerholm, Peter J M; Westerlund, Hugo; Singh-Manoux, Archana; Jokela, Markus (January 2015). “Long working hours, socioeconomic status, and the risk of incident type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis of published and unpublished data from 222 120 individuals”. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. 3 (1): 27–34. doi:10.1016/S2213-8587(14)70178-0. PMC 4286814. PMID 25262544.

We Need to Reimagine a More Family-Friendly Workplace

I started five businesses from scratch, and I can tell you the quality of talent that I was able to recruit early on made all the difference in whether I succeeded or stumbled.

What I’ve learned over the years is that recruiting the best and brightest isn’t just about cushy office furniture or amenities like free coffee, a stocked fridge or a downstairs gym. Today’s talent are seeking employers who offer a child care education fund or even a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) account to help pay for family support services.

I see a small number of big businesses, such as Starbucks and Best Buy, incorporating child care into their list of employee perks. But, smaller businesses can also up their perks game by offering child care as a benefit. This creates a working environment where parents feel supported and encouraged to advance in their careers.

Lifting the constant financial and emotional burden of working parents will no doubt raise the bar on the caliber of employees you attract and retain.

Family benefits not only foster loyalty, but these pro-family policies can also be profitable by boosting productivity.  The availability of paid child care plays a key role in allowing parents with children to remain in the labor force.  In each year from 2016 to 2018, more than 2 million parents of children age 5 and younger had to quit a job, not take a job, or change their job because of child care challenges — disproportionately affecting women. American businesses, meanwhile, lose an estimated $12.7 billion annually because of their employees’ child care challenges. Nationally, the cost of lost earnings, productivity, and revenue due to the child care crisis is estimated at $57 billion annually.

Lack of child care is also one of the primary factors that prevent us from creating an equitable workforce and eliminating the wage and gender gap. Just take a look at the millions of mothers who have lost or left their jobs due to child care burdens caused by the pandemic.

Since March 2020, Black and Latina moms have stopped working, either voluntarily or due to layoffs, at higher rates than white moms. Many are single moms who need child care but haven’t been able to access it during the pandemic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, single moms had higher rates of unemployment than their childless counterparts in the second and third quarters of 2020.

Experts forecast that loss of skills, tenure and income among women of color will shape the future U.S. economy. One reason is that insufficient child care could impact their ability to re-enter the workforce, their wages, their long-term economic outcomes and the overall economic recovery.

Like many single mom of color, I also struggled with chasing the “American Dream” due to child care challenges. In fact, my success as a C-level executive was slowed due to lack of adequate child care for my son. In 2004, for example, I was passed for a vice president of sales position because I couldn’t make it to work at the required 6:30 a.m. time due to lack of before-school care for my son. I struggled throughout much of my career with this challenge, especially being in technology, a primarily male-dominted industry.

Related: 4 Ways Your Company Can Radically Help Working Mothers

In an era where women are projected to make up 60% of the workforce in the next five years, employers can leverage existing technology to provide fully managed child care benefits, giving their workforce the flexibility and family support needed to gain employee productivity and increase ROI.

As entrepreneurs and company leaders, we can do better. We have the power to completely change the course of child care in the US while dramatically transforming our company cultures by redesigning the workplace to be more family friendly. This is the future of work.

By: Alessandra Lezama / Entrepreneur Leadership Network Writer

Source: We Need to Reimagine a More Family-Friendly Workplace

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Critics:

Work–family balance in the United States refers to the specific issues that arise when men and women in the United States attempt to balance their occupational lives with their family lives. This differs from work–life balance in the United States: while work–life balance may refer to the health and living issues that arise from work, work–family balance refers specifically to how work and families intersect and influence each other. Work–family balance in the U.S. differs significantly for families of different social class.

Middle-class family issues center on dual-earner spouses and parents while lower class issues center on problems that arise due to single parenting. Work–family balance issues also differ by class, since middle class occupations provide more benefits and family support while low-wage jobs are less flexible with benefits. Solutions for helping individuals manage work–family balance in the U.S. include legislation, workplace policies, and the marketization of care work.

References

Dillaway, Heather and Elizabeth Pare. 2008. “Locating Mothers How Cultural Debates About Stay-at-Home Versus Working Mothers Define Women and Home.” Journal of Family Issues 29(4): 437-464.

50 Work-From-Home Jobs Paying as Much or a Lot More Than the Average American Salary

50 Work-From-Home Jobs Paying as Much or a Lot More Than the Average American Salary

There was a time when working from home was a pipe dream, but recently, there’s been a surge of jobs you can do from your own place.

Whether that’s working remotely for a company or starting your own business, there’s no shortage of work-from-home opportunities. Here are 50 options, many of which can generate annual earnings that equate to more than the average American salary.

1. Affiliate Marketer

For those unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, it’s simply referral marketing where you earn a commission. Let’s say that you have a website and refer a book on Amazon. When the visitor clicks the affiliate link and buys the book, Amazon will pay you a percentage of the sale. People love affiliate marketing because they can start earning money passively with few startup costs.

Related: 5 Ways to Ensure Remote Employees Feel Part of the Team

2. Animator

Are you an artistic and creative individual who is able to create animation and visual effects for television, movies, video games and other types of media? Then you can work at home as freelance animator. (Personally, I’ve seen animators make between $25 to $106 an hour on sites like Upwork.)

3. Baker/Caterer/Chef

If you have a knack for baking or cooking, then turn your passion into a side business. From your own kitchen, you could start a catering business or become a personal chef. If you’re a baker, you could sell you goods to friends, neighbors, online or at local farmer’s markets.

4. Blogger

Blogging is inexpensive and easy to start doing. It could be as simple as you just writing about your favorite music or food, and eventually, you can start generating money from your site. Just keep in mind that you need to pay patient when it comes to cashing in on your blog. If this is something you want to pursue, check out this guide.

5. Bookkeeper

Believe it or not, you don’t have to be a CPA to start bookkeeping. Just sign up for a bookkeeping course at a community college or even online (such as this course from The Accounting Coach). Once you complete a course, you can start earning, and the median salary is reportedly $34,000. (Some stay-at-home bookkeepers I’ve spoken with personally make more than $70,000.)

6. Child Caregiver

Whether if it’s just for a couple of hours or for the entire day, running a childcare business from your home can be lucrative. Just make sure that you obtain the correct licenses and permits.

7. Clinical Research Coordinator

Clinical research coordinators help manage operations for clinical trials. You could make more than $48,000 with this job, and you don’t need a bachelor’s degree.

Related: Bashing the Stereotypes: What You Need to Know About Gen Z

8. Consulting

If you have experience and knowledge in a specific area, then consider sharing it with others. For example, if you’re an accountant or lawyer, then you can provide advice to small businesses for a pretty penny. You could also consult businesses on how to use a new software program or how to become more environmentally friendly. (If you’re interested, my company offers a consulting guide to get started.)

9. Customer Service Representative

Do you possess excellent communication skills? Do you also have a landline and reliable internet? Then you can earn between $8 and $15 per hour as a customer service representative.

10. Data Entry

Inputting data for businesses isn’t the most of exciting of jobs. However, you don’t need any previous experience, and you can start at $10 per hour.

11. Copy Writing

You can write copy for businesses from your home and, in some cases, earn up to six figures. Try Fiverr or Upwork to find gigs.

12. E-commerce Store Owner

There are five types of e-commerce business models: dropshipping, wholesaling, manufacturing, white-labeling and subscriptions. Thanks to sites like Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce, you can quickly launch your own ecommerce store.

13. Editing and Proofreading

Companies like Book in a Box pay around $20 per hour to editors, book jacket designers and proofreaders.

14. Event Planner

Whether if it’s planning a wedding, birthday party or corporate event, people are looking for organized individuals to do most of the event planning for them.

Related: Learn the 4 Principles That Helped This Virtual Company Become One of the Best Cultures in America

15. Film and Post Instructional Videos

Are you really good at something? Try creating a YouTube account and filming yourself instructing others on how to do what you’re skilled at. To start earning some cash, enroll in YouTube’s partner program so that you can make $1 to $2 per 1,000 views.

16. Grant Writer

Universities, hospitals, and nonprofit organizations often need to apply for grant money. Since these applications can be difficult to write, these businesses often turn to talented grant writers. As a grant writer, you can make between $40,300 and $67,000 per year.

17. Graphic Designer

Many businesses are in need of someone to design their logos, websites or visual ads. If you have a degree or certification in this area, you can make a comfortable salary annually (reportedly $45,000 and up). The more skilled you are, the more clients you’ll likely get through word of mouth. Here’s a guide on how to build a website that can help you get started.

18. Handmade Crafter

Do you make handmade products like jewelry or furniture? If so, try setting up an Etsy shop and selling your handmade crafts online.

19. Instructor

Do you know how to play a musical instrument? Can you get people into shape? Whatever your knowledge or experience, some people will pay you to share that information with them, whether in person or online.

20. Internet Security Specialist

As an internet security specialist, you monitor networks for security threats and implement security standards. You may also install data protection systems as well. Given the attention that online security has been receiving, this job is expected to grow steadily over the next several years.

Related: How to Stay Motivated Working From Home

21. Online Juror

When attorneys prepare for a trial, they often seek feedback on their case. Depending on the mock jury website you choose, you can make between $5 to $150 for your opinion.

22. Online Teacher

Are you a teacher who’s looking for a more flexible schedule? Then consider teaching via Skype or via a pre-recorded session through organizations like K12 and Connections Academy.

23. Patent or Intellectual Property Lawyer

Applying for a patent or protecting intellectual property are both areas where expert advice is needed. As such, if this is your area of the law, you could reportedly make between $112 and $121 per hour.

24. Peer-to-Peer Lender

Thanks to sites like Lending Club and Prosper, you can easily lend money to a business or individual. As an investor, you’d make money on the paid interest of the note.

25. Pet Groomer

Do you love being around animals? Are you also patient enough to clean and style pets? If so, this could be a great home-based business.

Related: The Biggest Do’s and Don’ts of Video Conferencing

26. Photographer/Videographer

Even though everyone has a camera on their phone these days, there’s still a need for these types of professionals like for events like weddings. You can also sell your images on sites like Foap.

27. Product Reviewer

You can make a decent living (reportedly between $20,000 and $95,000) just by reviewing the products that you use daily.

28. Programmer

Learn a programming language, such as Ruby, and you could end up making around $61 per hour for programming. If you’re interested, here’s a handy programmer guide to get you on your way.

29. Realtor

While you can run a reality business from your home, as long as you have your state’s real estate license, you still need to show potential buyers the home. But don’t forget that you also have to prepare the home for showing. Thanks to technology, you can become a virtual realtor where you can show a property without having to be there in person.

30. Renter

Do you have an extra bedroom? How about a car you don’t drive everyday? Are there household items laying around collecting dust? If so, try renting them out to people who could use them. (I personally made over $50,000 renting out my basement in 2017.)

31. Repairer

If you have a knack for fixing things, like bicycles, cars or computers, then consider launching your own repair business. It probably doesn’t cost more than a little marketing to get started since you probably already have the tools and resources.

Related: 3 Ways to Keep Employees Productive at Home

32. Short Tasks

A short task is a job or assignment that can be completed quickly. Examples include writing a review, taking a survey, or watching a video. They may not pay much, but it’s a fast and easy way to make money from home. Here’s a list of short task sites you can check out if interested.

33. Social Media Manager

There are a lot of organizations who need someone to manage their social media accounts, and some may even want you to completely develop a social media strategy for them.

34. Stylist

If you love fashion and want to work from home, then you can become an online stylist. Some reportedly make up to $15 an hour.

35. Survey Taker

This won’t make you a millionaire, but you can be paid between $1 and $50 each time you take an opinion poll, answer questions about your shopping habits or review a product. You’re usually paid by check, PayPal or points that can later be redeemed for gift cards.

36. Tax Preparer

Even though this is a seasonal gig, you can make a salary of over $30,000. Don’t forget to register with the IRS before you start this home-based business.

37. Become an Expert

Nowadays, people are going online to find experts at things they themselves may be struglging with. A growing trend is hiring an expert versus hiring a large company to come in and help fix problems. One resource is Catalant, which hires out experts from $15 an hour to $280 an hour. That’s one option if you’re looking to help others with your knowledge.

Related: How This Mom Grew Multiple 6-Figure Businesses From Home

38. Telephone Nurse

If you’re a registered nurse, then you could work for health insurers or health management companies like Humana, Aetna and UnitedHealth Group. They hire nurses remotely to handle case management, treatment authorization and patient education.

39. Transcriber/Transcriptionist

This job essentially means listening to audio files, such as lectures or doctors’ medical dictations, and then typing out what you hear. It’s an entry-level gig that can pay up to $25 an hour.

40. Translator

Are you fluent in another language? Start earning a living off of this skill by translating documents or becoming an interpreter.

41. Travel Agent

Despite the fact that there are numerous travel sites that make planning a trip a breeze, it can still be time-consuming. What’s more, there may be certain travel conditions that you are not aware of. That’s why there’s still a market for travel agents to scour the web for the best deals, share advice or plan itineraries.

42. Virtual Assistant

If you’re organized and can handle office duties like replying to emails, calendar management, entering data and assisting with social media, then this job is perfect for you. And you can make between $10 and $15 per hour.

Related: 4 Reasons Not to Be a Stiff About Employees Working From Home

43. Virtual Public Relations Representative

Some small- to medium-sized businesses don’t have the budget for a dedicated chief marketing officer, a vice president of marketing or even a public relations firm. But they may have the funds to hire a virtual public relations representative to take care of duties like promoting a business or managing a crisis.

44. Virtual Recruiter

This is pretty much the same position as an in-house recruiter except you get to work wherever you want. The other major difference is that you search the web to find the right employee for the right position. You’re also responsible for screening the applicant and being a part of the interviewing and negotiation process. Some recruiters are paid upward of $125 an hour for building resume templates.

45. Virtual Tutor

If you have extensive knowledge in a specific area, then you could earn between $12 to $35 per hour by tutoring students either over the phone or on Skype.

46. Voice Acting

If you have a golden voice, you can make somewhere between $56 and $72 per hour.

47. Web Developer

Depending on the specific job, as well as your expertise, you could bring in between $55,000 and $175,000 per year building websites from scratch.

Related: The Legal Implications of Expecting Employees to Work After Hours

48. Web Search Evaluator

In order to deliver the most accurate service to customers, search engines pay individuals to analyze search results. You don’t need to have much experience, and you can haul in $12 to $15 an hour.

49. Website Tester

Businesses want to make sure that their websites are intuitive and easy to navigate. As such, they’ll assign instructions for people to follow to check out their site. Each test usually takes around 15 to 20 minutes. In return, you’ll often be paid $10 to $15 per test.

50. Writing Gigs

Businesses of all sizes need written content, like blog posts, website copy or eBooks. As a result, there are thousands of writing gigs available that pay anywhere between $10 to $100 per hour.

John Rampton

 

By: John Rampton / Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP

Source: 50 Work-From-Home Jobs Paying as Much or a Lot More Than the Average American Salary

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More Contents:

50 Companies Hiring for Remote Jobs

To view more information about the company and to see past job openings, click the company name. If you’re a FlexJobs member, log in to see job descriptions for current positions.

  1. Robert Half International
  2. Kelly
  3. Randstad
  4. Kforce
  5. UnitedHealth Group
  6. Supporting Strategies
  7. Ajilon
  8. Twilio
  9. CVS Health
  10. K12
  11. Aerotek
  12. Thermo Fisher Scientific
  13. Adecco
  14. Accounting Principals
  15. Aquent
  16. Anthem, Inc.
  17. Beacon Hill Staffing Group
  18. NTT Group
  19. Pearson
  20. eXp Realty
  21. HubSpot
  22. Toast
  23. Alight Solutions
  24. SPECTRAFORCE
  25. Citizens Bank
  26. GitHub
  27. Wells Fargo
  28. Parexel
  29. Vistaprint
  30. PRA Health Sciences
  31. CSI Companies
  32. Capital Group Companies
  33. Tava Health
  34. Bilingual Therapies
  35. Solomon Page
  36. Profit Factory
  37. Lincoln Financial Group
  38. Chime Financial, Inc.
  39. LanguageLine Solutions
  40. GoHealth LLC
  41. Welocalize
  42. American Express
  43. Cerebral Care
  44. Alorica
  45. Coalition Technologies
  46. Paylocity
  47. Russell Tobin
  48. Chainlink Labs
  49. Doctor On Demand
  50. SAP

Career Fields and Jobs That Hire Remote Workers

Although companies have expanded their views on what types of roles can be done remotely, these career fields generally post the most remote jobs:

  1. Computer & IT
  2. Medical & Health
  3. Project Management
  4. Sales
  5. Accounting & Finance
  6. Customer Service
  7. Marketing

And while you can do a wide variety of jobs from home, some of the most popular remote job titles include:

Use FlexJobs to Find Remote-Friendly Jobs

Remote work stands to play a major role in the future of work for many years to come. Staying informed about which companies are hiring for work-from-home jobs can help you find the exact remote opportunity you’re looking for.

 

Since 2007, FlexJobs has helped job seekers find flexible jobs with thousands of remote-friendly employers and job postings in more than 50 categories. Take the tour and find out how a membership can help you connect with legitimate, professional remote jobs.

Remote Living Has Eroded Our Empathy and Executives Must Find a Way To Understand Their Staff

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It is difficult to count what we have lost during the pandemic. We’ve lost jobs, loved ones, incomes and our social lives. Living and working remotely has also meant we are losing our empathy for colleagues. This is especially true of business leaders and executives who need to be able to understand the problems their employees are grappling with as we leave lockdown.

This loss in our ability to empathize with one another is not new. In 2018, 51 per cent of Brits said they thought it was declining, compared with just 12 per cent who thought it was increasing. The pandemic has supercharged this. We are looking at one another through screens and heavily ensconced in our own worlds, so it is difficult to expand our awareness to people with different experiences.

There is a crucial difference between empathy and sympathy. To sympathize with someone means we feel sad for their misfortune. Empathy, on the other hand, means understanding and sharing the feelings of another.

Throughout the pandemic, most of us have been able to sympathize with those who have lost jobs or family members. We have been able to feel compassion for those living in cramped quarters. But by being physically separated from them, we have not been able to truly understand and empathize with those people.

We have become distanced from our employees and, more widely, our customers – the

majority of who increasingly want to deal with companies and brands that demonstrate their care for people and the planet. As offices start to reopen, it is vital we can act with empathy towards our staff and those we serve. This is crucially important for those at the top of businesses, who have kept their jobs and had a different experience of the pandemic.

In order to understand the customers and people they are serving, business leaders need to be able to understand their staff. There is a huge array of experience just waiting to be tapped into to create a more empathetic work environment. Some communities are more tight-knit than others and have had better support systems throughout lockdown. Younger workers may have been more isolated and need more help and encouragement returning to the office.

Often senior executives have more in common with other senior executives than their customers and other target audiences, such as staff. Therefore, learning how to rebuild lost empathy will mean spending more time with the people you’ve never met. To lead with listening and not opining, to immerse yourself first-hand in the real-world experience of your customers’ lives rather than just reading reports about them.

On a practical level, this might look like asking for written feedback from staff on their experience of lockdown. It could also mean trying to spend time in the office coffee shop. Appearing physically accessible to employees will encourage conversations that can never happen over email.

There is also a place for data, but not as we know it. In today’s big data era, digital interaction between companies and customers means businesses have access to more data than ever before. Sourcing the most valuable data isn’t the only challenge. When there is an over-reliance on endless sheets of numbers it can be difficult to define behaviors. There is a risk of losing a richness of understanding. One-on-one interviews with staff or customers can be more useful than “big data”.  It can be costly and time-consuming and, because  of this, it often gets left behind.

However, with so much of the same data out there, it is in the small, slow data that the most striking insights can be found – nuanced findings that can make all the difference between people thinking you and your business are empathetic, or not.

By:   Joint Chief Strategy Officer at BBH London

Source: Remote living has eroded our empathy and executives must find a way to understand their staff – CityAM : CityAM

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Read More:

97 per cent of office workers want a work from home arrangement post-pandemic

21+ Questions Every Manager Should Ask Their Employees

Timeline View Is A Picture Perfect Way To See It All

How To Deliver Difficult News With Compassion To Your Employees

5 Ways To Successfully Ditch The Digital Distractions

6 Communication Mistakes To Avoid With Your Remote Team

5 Ways Agile Can Help Your Remote Team Thrive

How To Set Strong Work-Life Boundaries As A Remote Worker

The Secrets To Sustaining A Strong Remote Team

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Would you consider yourself an empathetic person at work? Are you always willing to lend an ear to your co-worker’s latest band practice drama, or would you prefer to keep conversations at the corporate level?

A recent survey conducted for the 2018 State of Workplace Empathy reported that a whopping 96% of respondents rated empathy as an important quality for companies to demonstrate. Despite this, 92% of employees believe that empathy remains undervalued at their company, which is an increase from results in prior years.

Empathy is described as not just understanding another person’s perspective, but truly putting yourself in their shoes and feeling those emotions alongside that person. It’s a cornerstone of emotional intelligence, and when a workplace demonstrates empathy, there are countless studies that correlate it to increased happiness, productivity, and retention amongst employees.

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