With employers increasingly hiring more part-time workers and fewer full-time staffers, many in the workforce are considering the viability of part-time employment. Beyond the obvious income ramifications, there are hosts of advantages and disadvantages to consider when determining if the part-time employment model works for you.
Key Takeaways
Working part-time is ideal for family-oriented individuals – especially those who value the opportunity to pick up their young children from school.
Part-time workers enjoy increased free time in which to pursue extracurricular activities.
Not only can part-timers save on gas and car maintenance costs, but they may also be able to shave dollars from their monthly auto insurance premiums.
More Free Time to Pursue Other Projects and Activities
Arguably the biggest advantage of working part-time is the increased free time with which to pursue extracurricular activities. For those lacking the requisite academic credentials for their dream job, a part-time position may serve as a stepping stone that affords the flexibility to obtain the certification needed find roles in their desired profession.
Others may use part-time jobs to climb the ladder within an existing field. For example, an individual with a social work degree can obtain part-time entry-level work that lets them simultaneously earn the graduate degree needed to land a more lucrative mental health job.
Part-time jobs also appeal to those nurturing special projects, such as writing, civic outreach, and artistic endeavors. Such pursuits offer immense personal fulfillment, even if they don’t bring in large paychecks.
Opening Doors to New Job Opportunities
When there are no full-time positions available within a given company, workers may accept part-time employment to position themselves as the obvious candidate when a coveted full-time slot becomes available. A part-time job can also help individuals gain experience and training in fields unfamiliar to them.
After all, an employer who may be reluctant to hire an inexperienced person on a full-time basis, may be inclined to hire an eager candidate on a part-time basis if they express an enthusiastic desire to learn the trade.
Opportunity to Earn More Money
Although it may sound counter-intuitive, working part-time can sometimes enable an individual to make more money – especially if they are capable of balancing more than one job. For example, a person who pairs a 30 hour-per-week gig with another 20 hour-per-week gig may pull in a greater combined income than a single full-time position would provide. Furthermore, given that many full-time salaried positions demand 50- to 60-hour workweeks, this individual may still end up working fewer total hours.
Reduced Stress Levels and Improved Health
Studies show that full-time workers tend to feel worn out, due to insufficient time needed to exercise, enjoy the sunny outdoors, and generally commit to a healthy lifestyle.12 Contrarily, part-time workers have more time to hit the gym more often and get a better night’s sleep. Part-time employment also allows for more efficient management of daily tasks like grocery shopping, doing the laundry, and completing other household chores, ultimately resulting in more order at home.
«Paradoxically, voluntary part-time workers often experience decreased financial stress, because they conform spending to align with their income.3 This behavior is antithetical to the phenomenon known as lifestyle inflation, where one’s expenses actually expand with increased income. In other words: those capable of adjusting to a slightly lower standard of living often discover that working fewer hours is favorable to the demands of working full time.
The Importance of Family
Working part-time is ideal for family-oriented individuals – especially those who value the opportunity to pick up their children from school. Furthermore, part-timers may save on day care expenses, which may exceed the extra money earned by working full-time.
Although a certain income level is necessary to provide for one’s family, those who earn just enough to pay for essential living expenses, while sacrificing luxury goods, may find short-term work to be an unacceptable trade-off.
Saving Money on Transportation Costs
One possible situational advantage to part-time work lies in the area of transportation costs. Case in point: an individual who finds part-time work near their home may save more on transportation expenses than those who commute an hour or more daily to a full-time job. Not only can part-timers save on gas and car maintenance costs, but they may also shave dollars from their monthly auto insurance premiums, which are often mileage-dependent.
Presenteeism is a situation where workers who are physically present at the workplace are not operating at maximum capability due to illness, injury, or another condition.
During the spring wave of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, almost half of all employees in the UK were working from home at least some of the time. Whilst this was, of course, a scary time for everyone, there was also a sense of banding together, battening down the hatches and maybe even a little excitement at being able to work from home for the first time. Many adapted well to this strange new set-up. Kitchen tables became digital business hubs and spare bedrooms make-shift Zoom boardrooms.
But that was nearly 10 months ago, and the short-term shift to remote working has gradually become a more permanent, fundamental change in the way we work. And many are now realising the potential pitfalls.
Driven partly by the resurgence of the virus following the summer, and also by shifting attitudes of employers who are now realising they can trust their people to get the job done and remain productive without their watchful eye, remote working is here to stay in some capacity. A recently released survey from KPMG showed how 68 percent of CEOs plan on downsizing their offices to reflect this shift, and it seems that what was the most popular employee benefit of the last decade has been fast-tracked some 20 years in the space of 10 months.
That’s all well and good for those who have adjusted well or have properties large enough to accommodate a home office. But not everyone wants to be working from home. Some miss the buzz of the office and the social aspect of a workplace. Others may miss the ‘me time’ that a commute afforded them. Indeed, many new members of the work-from-home community may have contributed to the startling increase in divorce rates and break-ups.
Maybe that open-plan family room wasn’t such a good idea after all. Regardless of which camp you’re in, remote working in some form is here to stay. So how can you make a success of it? Here are some pointers from someone who’s been a member of the work-from-home clan for more than two years now.
Create a dedicated space.
The biggest change that new work-from-homers will need to make as a short-term solution shifts into a permanent new reality is creating a space in their home that’s sole purpose is work.
Kitchen tables, the sofa or cluttered box room just won’t cut it anymore. Even for organisations that switch to a 3-2-2 model or a variation of it (that’s three days in the office, two working remotely and two days off at the weekend), it’d be a struggle in terms of professional mindset to move from office to sofa and maintain the same attitude, output and productivity.
A dedicated space helps create a more seamless transition between workplace and home working. It will induce a professional mindset when you enter and aid focus. This dedicated space should ideally be cut off in some way from distractions and general home noises.
I don’t think I would have been nearly as productive over the last two years if every morning was a trip to the kitchen to turn the laptop on and there I stayed until 6 p.m. That close a proximity to the fridge certainly wouldn’t have helped things either!
Play around with the ambience.
One of the big benefits that many would have enjoyed when starting their first few remote workdays is having total control over the office environment. Radio station? Pick your favourite. Too warm? No need to negotiate opening a window with an always-cold coworker.
For long-term remote working, it’s good to play around with the ambience of your home office to find what works best.
As an example, I always find talk radio is a great backing track for the morning rush to clear the inbox and check on campaigns. But the post-lunch lull requires a lively Spotify playlist at full blast to maintain productivity.
Others find that certain tasks, such as a blog or technical writing, can be easier to focus on with softer background noise such as rain sounds or even a YouTube video of general office background noise (I kid you not, and I’ve tried it, and it does work on occasion).
Have a play around with lighting too. Natural light is always best for alertness and attention, whilst for those who like to work into the evenings, softer lamp light may be less harsh.
Finally, have a think about the temperature of your room. Whilst it’s very tempting to create a snug office that’s always warm, research has found that we tend to lose focus and productivity in rooms that are too warm. After all, if you’re a bit tired after a long drive, you don’t whack the heating on – you open the window for some fresh air.
Force yourself to stay connected.
Remote working presents a challenge to both extroverts and introverts.
For the former, not being surrounded by co-workers, a lack of “real” conversations or office socialising are a real problem when it comes to working from home. They thrive on these interactions and, as such, working alone at home can become frustrating and isolating.
On the flip side, for introverts who likely gravitate toward remote working more naturally, there is a danger of slipping into a mindset that starts to resent or even fear the Zoom or MS Teams call sound after a few hours of peace. For the more introverted, the office forced social interactions. Remote working can quickly see you start to actively avoid the group chats and digital socials.
Whichever camp you may be in – and it can be a bit of both depending on your mood and how fatigued you are – forcing yourself to stay connected is critical for long-term remote working.
And force yourself to stop working, too.
This is probably the biggest problem for the WFH community. For a workforce that was increasingly becoming an ‘always-on’ workforce, working from home has exacerbated the problem – especially when the makeshift workspace was the kitchen table or living room armchair.
But it’s critical for the long-term success of remote working to force yourself to STOP. If your organisation has still enforced a 9-5 or equivalent working hours – just work those hours then shut up shop for the day. If your employers are really forward-thinking and allow for both remote working and flexible hours too, then make sure you’re pacing yourself too.
A recent survey from The Office Group found that working longer hours was the biggest contributor to burnt-out millennials, alongside the inability to separate work and personal life.
Remember, you’re no good to anyone if you burn out from overworking. And it’s detrimental to your physical and mental health. So take a break, try to switch off when your day is done and resist the late-night email check.
The best ways I’ve found to deal with this is actually leaving the house when a particular working shift is done, either to walk the dog or a trip to the shop. It breaks the work mindset and helps you to switch off. Give it a try!
By: Arthur Wilson Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP
Modus Project Manager Samantha Park sits down with Co-Founder Jay Garcia to discuss how remote life differs at Modus from other organizations, share some of their techniques to make remote work easier, and talk about some of the challenges they’ve experienced working in a non-traditional environment. Ms. Park elaborates on the flexibility and independence that remote work provides, and discusses the expectation and reality of remote work, how to create a work-life balance, and tips for staying focused and on track. Modus is always on the lookout for people who want to work in an environment where they are challenged to grow and do great things with awesome people. Think you have what it takes to work with us? Check out our open positions at https://moduscreate.com/careers Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and turn on notifications! https://mdus.co/subscribe Sam on Social Media: Twitter – https://twitter.com/sparkps126 LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantham… Blog – https://moduscreate.com/blog Timestamps: 0:24 – Working remotely at Modus 0:50 – Going fully-remote for the first time 1:38 – Dealing with loneliness 2:08 – Expectation vs. reality of remote work 2:33 – Drawing a boundary between work and life 3:29 – The flexibility of remote work 4:14 – Building an office space at home 5:16 – Leading Modus while remote Modus Create is a disruptive consulting firm based on the model of an open-source team dedicated to making the best software on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it. Together with our customers, we build products that empower people with breakthrough services and experience. Modus is always on the lookout for people who want to work in an environment where they are challenged to grow and do great things with awesome people. Think you have what it takes to work with us? Check us out at https://moduscreate.com/careers #workfromhome #remotework #employeeinterview #workculture #collaboration #collaborationtools #creativethinking
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Lately, there is a huge movement towards the idea of work-life balance. We are often told that people can be just as effective in working less time and that doing 50-70 hours a week is toxic, unsustainable, and unnecessary.
Although it sounds smart to maintain work-life balance, experience tells me that a business would not normally get off the ground if a business owner didn’t put in the time.
I launched my first business in 2002 and like most entrepreneurs, worked incredibly long hours. A typical day was about 12 hours and a typical month involved taking one weekend off. I averaged 60 hours of work per week for four years straight as the business grew from $1M+ in sales revenue to over $10M+.
In 2006, I launched another business and once again found that a 50-60hour week was the time it took to stay on top of everything that needed to be done. The same happened when I started another company in 2010 and it persisted for another five years.
There’s a reason for this. Businesses make money primarily because of the assets they control and as a result of the labor that sweats those assets. A startup neither has any assets or any labor force.
The trick to getting a business off the ground is to create valuable assets (products, systems, brand, intellectual property, etc) while simultaneously recruiting a team and running the day-to-day operations. If that sounds like a hard task, you’re right — it is. It’s a constant balance of working on the business, in the business, and recruiting people to join the business. You also have to achieve all of this, without running out of money.
Anyone who works in an established company is leveraging existing assets. When they mention the company brand, refer to their operations manual, log in to the IT system, share a customer success story or sell a proven product, the assets are doing most of the work.
Working with an established team creates efficiency and momentum that you don’t normally notice until it’s missing. A company that has a team of 40 people who have all got training and experience is constantly benefiting from that team dynamic. Even if you hired and trained one new person a month, it would take about 4 years to arrive at a functioning team of 40 people.
Creating assets is a full-time job. Hiring and training people is a full-time job. Running the day to day operations of a business is a full-time job. It’s easy to see why entrepreneurs don’t have any trouble filling 12+ hours a day with work that needs to be done.
It’s important to know this before you start a business. If you have an expectation that a business will materialize with minimal time and effort, you will experience a lot of frustrations as the reality sets in.
On the flip-side, if you expect to be doing long days and working on your weekends, you’ll get on with it and still have a smile on your face. Work isn’t really work for entrepreneurs. Creating your own business, around something you are passionate about will feel energizing most of the time.
It is critically important that if you are doing long hours that you are blending your time between the three key roles. You can not simply be working in the business or else you will eventually burn yourself out and have nothing to show for it.
I recommend a blend of:
– 50% of your time working in the operations of the business: sales, marketing, administration, delivering value to customers.
– 25% of your time into asset creation: creating software, systems, intellectual property, media, and documenting best-practices.
– 25% of your time into hiring and training your team: start with an executive assistant, then get a salesperson and someone who can assist clients. Initially, this time could be used for fundraising and then when funds are secured, diverted to hiring and training.
Using this formula, you might spend 30 hours a week working in the business, 15 hours creating assets, and 15 hours developing your team. To some, this might sound like an unbearable workload but most successful entrepreneurs I know have put in these long hours in order to get to the point where they now make it look easy. More to the point, they have the assets and the team in place, who make it look easy.
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With long-term changes in the workplace underway, here’s what you can do now to prepare employees for the future of work.
In his commencement speech to Wright State University’s 2020 class, actor Tom Hanks referred to the Covid-19 pandemic as “the great reset” and “the great reboot.” The specifics of that reset have yet to be determined, but his message made clear that whatever they turn out to be, they will represent a distinct break from the patterns that preceded it.
Some of those details are now beginning to emerge, particularly those that apply to workplaces and to the workforce itself. For starters, it now seems unlikely that the disease will be eradicated before the need to resume economic activity becomes imperative. But what will it take to make employees feel confident that coming to work is something they can do without feeling unsafe? The prevailing architecture of office space — with open floor plans and cubicles designed to reduce square footage and maximize collaboration between closely spaced co-workers — may no longer provide the personal separation that people feel comfortable with.
As for the workforce itself, the work-from-home model is having a huge and likely lasting impact. A recent survey conducted by Jones Lang LaSalle found that just over 60% of the workers polled plan to return to their office for part of the week but will continue to spend a significant amount of work time at home, while only 34.5% expect to go back to the office full-time. It is a sentiment supported in a survey of corporate finance leaders conducted by Gartner, Inc. at the end of March, which revealed that three-quarters of the executives planned to move “at least 5% of their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions” following the pandemic. An analysis by the University of Chicago confirmed that 34% of U.S. jobs could plausibly be done from home.
This shift will compel businesses to build systems and strategies to meet the demands of the new status quo. Here are the key steps that all businesses can take now to prepare for the future workforce:
1. Ensure training processes are in place to help employees use technologies. Many companies already rely on a variety of technologies to enable their operations, from CRM platforms to task management and lead-gen software. The challenge now will be onboarding new employees and ensuring they get the training needed to use all the tools that are in place. It will be crucial to ensure that employees are using these tools efficiently as they come to administer a greater and greater share of those employees’ output.
In a study conducted by Forrester before the pandemic, organizations attribute the lack of CRM adoption to people-related obstacles, with 49% due to slow user adoption. This is not sustainable, especially in a business environment characterized by remote work and one that is increasingly powered by digital platforms. One way companies could address this is by deploying digital adoption solutions, which can provide personalized in-app guidance throughout the user’s journey.
2. Help your people collaborate remotely. Business leaders must also ensure that teams are collaborating effectively, which can start to become challenging as we forgo face-to-face interaction. This means organizations may need to transition processes to the cloud, perhaps more rapidly than they planned initially, so that remote workers can access the appropriate resources to do their jobs. In this new normal, employees can easily feel overwhelmed with the sheer rapidity of the digital transition. Companies could implement solutions that offer personalized digital guidance to help their people adapt.
3. Set success metrics upfront and be ready to adapt. As these digital tools take on greater importance in connecting newly distributed workforces, it will be essential to ensure employees are using them efficiently and that, in cases where efficiency may be flagging, decision-makers can make the necessary adjustments without disrupting workflows. With the dramatic decrease of face-to-face communications, it’ll be increasingly more difficult for decision-makers to gauge employee sentiment as well as receive and act upon feedback. Therefore, it’s essential to establish metrics upfront so they can quickly identify bottlenecks and other dynamics that can have a profound business impact.
While there’s a myriad of enterprise solutions currently out in the market, it’s common to come across roadblocks that can prevent a successful implementation. Oftentimes, businesses are challenged with selecting the right solution and may also find resistance from their end users when it comes to adopting new technology. This is when specific programs, depending on your goals and the outcome desired, should be devised.
It starts with asking yourself the right questions and why you’re searching for these solutions. Can a new tool seamlessly connect to your existing technology stack? Why are you selecting a specific tool, and how are you going to get your end users to adopt it? Creating a rollout plan — whether it’s in phases or rolling it out all at once, or assigning a project manager to help onboard and train new users — could empower the adoption of these new tools. Providing employees with the digital tools they need also helps to empower them to take their own initiative in training and development without the traditional office resources they’re used to such as asking a fellow colleague to walk them through a task in person.
Businesses today are facing monumental challenges to adapt to a new normal. Taking action now to establish processes and put in place tools to help employees succeed will pay enormous dividends in the months and years ahead, especially once repairs from the current pandemic’s damage are underway.
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Imagine that you’re meeting someone for the very first time. Perhaps you’re reaching for the same appetizer at a dinner party. Or maybe you’re seated next to each other on an airplane.
After a little bit of polite chit chat about the charcuterie board or the lack of legroom in your non-exit row, the inevitable question pops up: So, what do you do?
We’ve all answered it, and we’ve all asked it. It’s one of the most oft-repeated conversation starters, and for good reason. Our careers make up a major part of our lives, and this question is a seemingly straightforward way to get a grasp on what makes someone who they are.
But, is it really?
Do You Work To Live, Or Live To Work?
While asking what someone does for a living has become as natural as shaking hands or asking, “How are you?,” is it truly the best way to start an interaction with a stranger?
Or, is it just adding pressure to define ourselves solely by how we earn a paycheck—in a world where our jobs are already bleeding beyond normal working hours?
It seems like the latter might be the case, especially for the younger generations of the workforce. In a survey of more than 2,000 millennials by the Illinois psychiatric center, Yellowbrick, 70% of respondents agreed that they identify themselves only through their jobs.
Some skeptics might think, “Hey, what’s so wrong with that?” You invest a lot of energy and effort into your career, and if you’re beaming with pride about how you make your living, what’s the problem with leaning on that as a concise summary of who you are?
These professional definitions do wonders for your LinkedIn profile, but may be damaging your self-identity.
More Than Just A Job: The Dangers Of Defining Yourself By Your Career
In all honesty, there’s nothing inherently wrong with being proud of your career choices. But, as it turns out, using only your profession as the core of your identity does present some potential risks and pitfalls.
1. It Pigeonholes You Into One Identity
When I was in my freshman year of college, I had an experience that really stuck with me.
I began my education as a musical theatre major. Up to that point, performing was all I had ever done—I never played soccer, joined student council, or written for the school newspaper. I was the girl who did theatre. It defined who I was for as long as I could remember.
After making it through one semester of the musical theatre program, I started to realize that maybe that wasn’t what I wanted to do for a long-term career. The thought alone was terrifying. I vividly remember lamenting to my mom on the phone. “Mom, if I don’t perform anymore, what do I have left? Who am I?”
I found myself trapped in a full-blown identity crisis—all because I dared to think about trying something new.
Maybe you won’t be quite as melodramatic as I was (ahem, there was a reason I was in theatre), but I think a really similar dilemma can hit you in regards to your career.
What if things aren’t going well at work? What if you’re laid off? What if your company shuts down? What if you’re itching to make a change and want to shift to an entirely new position or industry? Then what? You’re left without an identity entirely? That hardly seems fair.
It’s also worth noting that your profession might be a big piece of your life, but it doesn’t make up the entirety of it. Continuously relying on our careers to summarize who we are means we end up robbing people of other interesting pieces of identities.
Just look at Kristen Bell as a celebrity example. She’s a well-known and accomplished actress. But, she’s also a passionate animal rights advocate and the co-founder of a line of eco-friendly baby products. Only describing herself as an “actress” time and time again barely scratches the surface on what makes her who she is.
After all, you might be one heck of an amazing software developer. But maybe you’re also a dog owner, a marathon runner, a dedicated conservationist, and an amateur photographer.
Simply pointing to your career (and only your career!) as a definition of who you are pins you into one category, and then fails to complete the picture.
2. It Doesn’t Leave As Much Room For Connection
A team member at Trello recently attended a dinner party where everyone was required to introduce themselves without mentioning what they do for work.
Sounds tough and even somewhat awkward, right? But the results were impressive.
This team member mentioned that the challenge opened up genuine conversations, as well as an opportunity for real connection over shared hobbies, passions, and experiences.
Without relying on that age-old conversation starter, people were able to bond over topics that probably never would’ve bubbled to the surface had they stopped at, “I’m a financial advisor!” and “Oh, cool. I’m a customer care representative!”
That’s another benefit of defining an identity outside of your career.
It forces you to think outside of your day job and pinpoint other ways you can describe what makes you who you are—and doing so gives you chances to connect with other people who might not know anything about your chosen profession.
Expanding your horizons (and your network!) outside of people who already seem familiar on some level can lead to numerous benefits for you, too—especially when it comes to evolving your own perspective and forging beneficial new bonds.
Just look at this study that was done at Harvard University, where incoming freshmen are assigned their roommates. As a result of these seemingly random assignments, people from various backgrounds, ethnicities, races, and more are put together to live together for the academic year. Tanya Menon, one of the study’s co-authors, explains:
“Some students might be initially uncomfortable, but the amazing thing is, by the end of the year, many of them choose to keep living with their roommates, showing that these random connections between diverse people can result in positive relationships”
3. It Can Lead To Burnout
If something is going to be your source of identity, you understandably want to be phenomenal at it, right? Just think: You’d probably be less likely to tout that you’re a digital marketing analyst to a room full of people if you’re constantly late to the office, barely meet minimum expectations, and are practically on the verge of getting fired.
Don’t get me wrong—wanting to knock your job responsibilities out of the park is positive and admirable. But, doing so just to affirm your identity can be a slippery slope.
Needing to invest so much into your day job means that your career can quickly overtake your other interests, and add increased pressure to be switched into “work mode” at all times (even during evenings, weekends, and vacations!). And, unfortunately, that’s becoming a pervasive problem for most of us.
One 2016 study found that participants spend an average of eight hours each week dealing with email when they’re off the clock. A separate Gallup study found that 23% of the 7,500 employees surveyed report feeling burned out at work very often or always. Another 44% say they feel burned out sometimes.
When your job is your primary source of identity, it’s easy to feel guilt-ridden about investing time and energy into anything else that doesn’t ultimately serve your career progression—as if your hobbies and passions deserve way less importance and emphasis.
That’s a dangerous precedent to set, especially when you need interests outside of the office in order to recharge and lead a balanced life.
So… How Can You Help Change The Conversation?
Here’s the thing: We’ll probably never do away with the “what do you do?” question entirely. It’s ingrained in Western culture and—let’s call it like we see it—your career really does make up a big part of your life (nobody is saying you need to kick it to the curb entirely!).
However, I do think we could all benefit by challenging ourselves to forge identities outside of just how we earn a paycheck.
Fortunately, this is something that you can take action on ASAP—and doing so is actually pretty easy. The next time you’re meeting someone for the first time (whether you’re at a dinner party or trapped in the close quarters of an airplane seat), try to avoid immediately asking a question about their profession, and instead opt for something more open-ended and less career-focused like:
How do you like to spend your free time?
What’s something recent you’re really proud of?
Do you have anything planned for this weekend?
You might just be surprised by the authentic and interesting conversations that blossom from there. Because after all, our careers might be an easy representation of what we do, but they certainly don’t tell the whole story of who we are.
«Paradoxically, voluntary part-time workers often experience decreased financial stress, because they conform spending to align with their income.3 This behavior is antithetical to the phenomenon known as lifestyle inflation, where one’s expenses actually expand with increased income. In other words: those capable of adjusting to a slightly lower standard of living often discover that working fewer hours is favorable to the demands of working full time.
Modus Create, Inc.
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