Top 5 Perks for Home-Based Workers

Home-based workers refer to employees who are allowed to work from home. Some examples of jobs that allow people to work from home include translators or graphic designers. While there are distractions, working from home allows greater schedule flexibility and saves transportation money.

On the other hand, working from home also means there is potential for distractions and productivity decrease for some employees.

In this blog post, we will be going over the top 5 perks for home-based workers in order to cope with the drawbacks of working from home as well as boosting morale and navigating challenges.

What Are Home-Based Workers?

Home-based workers, as the name suggests, are employees who are allowed to work from home as part of the company’s employee benefits package or by request. This includes both hybrid and remote workers.

Examples of Jobs Where You Can Work From Home

Below are some examples of jobs where you can work from home.

• Blogger
• Translator
• Graphic designer
• Virtual assistant
• Online teachers and tutors
• Recruiter

How to Find Jobs that Allow You to Work From Home

Now that you know what home-based workers are and some examples of jobs that allow you to work from home, let’s now move onto how you can find jobs that allow you to work from home.

Much like any job searching and application process, do your research and read through the company’s benefits to see if working from home is among them. Beyond remote work benefits, make sure to also read through the qualifications like you would with onsite job listings.

You can browse through job-posting platforms such as Linkedin or Indeed to search for jobs that allow you to work from home. Make sure to filter out your search and job preferences accordingly to ensure you get remote work results as you prefer.

Benefits of Working from Home

Working from home also has its fair share of benefits. You may know some key benefits such as the employees being free of office distractions and at the comfort of their homes. Below are the key benefits of working from home.

No Office Distractions

For some, noises in the office such as phones ringing, printer noises, or chattering could be extremely distracting. Thankfully, all these issues will not be the case should the employee decide to work from home.

While there may be excessive noises in the form of bolting, sawing, or drilling from the neighbors doing construction, or the neighbors mowing the lawn, these may not be as annoying for home-based workers, and they can filter out those noises by wearing headsets and play music if they wish.

Because there are no office distractions and you get to concentrate better, this will allow you to adopt a deep work model so you can complete tasks with peak concentration. To find out about the deep work model and how you can achieve it, click the link below for further reading.

How to Harness the Power of Deep Work

Convenient Cross-Nation Communication

Thanks to the convenience, telecommuting with team members across countries will eliminate the need for overseas travel and allow you to contact overseas team members in a matter of seconds.

More Time with Family Members

For parents with infants or younger kids, working from home will allow them to spend time with and take care of their kids due to not leaving for work earlier in the day and returning home late at night.

Working from home also allows parents to strengthen their relationship with family members in the form of sports or other activities thanks to the flexible schedule.

Greater Flexibility

With working from home, you have greater flexibility due to not being bound by specific work hours, including breaks. This allows employees to go on errands like groceries or see a doctor much easier.

For instance, you can use the time in your lunch break to quickly head to the grocery store and top up home supplies before heading back home to work, or you can also attend a medical appointment if you’ve conveniently scheduled it during the lunch break of your remote work day.

Greater flexibility thanks to working from home will also make it easier for employees to achieve better work life balance. If you are interested in working remotely, click the link below for further reading on some of the best countries for work life balance.

The Best Countries for Work-Life Balance in 2024

Saves Money on Transportation

The most prominent benefit of working from home is that home-based workers get to save money on transportation due to working at home without needing to travel all the way to work by cab or train. This also helps eliminate refueling expenses if you drive to work yourself.

What are the Disadvantages of Working From Home?

While home-based workers prefer working remotely from home, there are notable drawbacks to working from home which makes business managers think twice before hiring home-based workers. Below are notable disadvantages of working from home.

Distractions at Home

The most obvious drawback of working from home is there could be distractions at home which can impact work performance. These could include television, household chores, or sudden errands requiring you to leave your workstation.

To rectify this issue, you can limit or remove objects in your workstation and nearby areas which could be a distraction. You can also tell family members at home that you are working remotely so they do not disrupt your concentration with the introduction of sudden chores or errands.

Productivity Decrease

While working from home can help increase productivity for some due to independence, this may not be the case for others. Because employees are free to move around and take breaks whenever they wish, it could be difficult to focus on certain tasks and lead to decreased productivity.

One way to address this issue is by breaking down your task into smaller, bite-size tasks, prioritizing them in order, and setting deadlines for yourself. You can also use productivity tools such as time trackers or task management applications.

Workplace Disconnect

Working remotely can sometimes lead to employees feeling disconnected from their coworkers, which means they will not have access to immediate information about certain tasks until someone in the company communicates it to you.

Assuming you are only working from home on some days during the week, it’s crucial to stay connected with coworkers physically while working in the office through maintaining frequent communication whenever you have questions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while working from home may have some drawbacks in the form of distractions and productivity decrease as well as workplace disconnect, some of these drawbacks might not be an issue for some home-based workers.

Thanks to benefits such as increased convenience and flexibility, home-based workers will be able to save money on transportation and refueling, spend more time with their family, or perform errands during the break.

As a leading international health insurance broker and employee benefits specialist, Pacific Prime has over 20 years of matching expats and locals to their health insurance plan of choice as well as offering efficient employee benefits solutions to employers.

Whether you’re a local or expat in need of an adequate health insurance policy or an employer looking to ensure your employees feel valued with the right employee benefits solution, we are more than happy to help you out.

And if you have any further questions, please get in touch with us.