Work From Home Zone

Helping Entrepreneurs and Employees Integrate Work and Life

Angela Crocker

• Publisher: Self-Counsel Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781770405240
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Time Management

From author Angela Crocker, thought leader on online communities, digital decluttering, education technology, and content planning, comes the definitive guide to working from home for employees and entrepreneurs.Most books about working from home are written for the businesses and employers managing others. This book is for the employees and the self-employed -- the workers and the entrepreneurs -- who are often overlooked when it comes to how to handle working from home.Including how-to's and case studies, Crocker discusses how to carve out your work space and meeting space, how to deal with communication technologies, and of course, how to set and maintain boundaries for a healthy and happy work and home life -- and so much more.

SECTION 1

Finding Your Way

As you embark on your work-from-home journey, you enter into a professional world that’s both familiar and different. If you make the choice, you’ll have time to map out your next moves. If the choice is imposed on you by your employer or happens abruptly due to something such as a pandemic, you’ll be scrambling, for a little while, at least.

Happily, the work-from-home life is filled with many new paths. You can still work for an employer or you can work for yourself. You can work entirely at home or set-up a hybrid arrangement with in-office days and at-home days. You’ll also get to decide how much you work — part time? Full time? More than full time? It’s up to you.

Figuring out the path that works for you gives you an opportunity to look at your life as a whole. You’ll think about how work integrates with fitness and family, technology, and personal needs, and so much more. In many ways, you’re living a “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel with lots of decisions to make the experience work for you.

CHAPTER 1

What Does “Work from Home” Mean?

Working from home is not one size fits all. For every job that can be done from home, there are a dozen or more ways to do that work. However, we can group those who work at home into three broad categories each with specific conditions related to the type of employment. These categories are remote work, entrepreneurial work, and hybrid work.

1. Remote Work

Remote workers are, typically, employees of a business. If you are an employee, you’ve been hired by a small business, a large corporation, or something in between. You are expected to do your job away from the company’s business premises.

When doing remote work, you are one member of a larger team and your job responsibilities are itemized in your job description. The projects you manage and the related day-to-day tasks are all directed by the company. Of course, you have autonomy to complete your work as you see fit but you also have predetermined expectations, milestones, and deadlines to meet.

Most likely, you are required to provide your own workspace furniture: desk, chair, file storage, and so on. You may also be required to acquire your own technology while in other cases you’ll be provided with the technology needed to do your job. Your gear requirements could include a laptop, mobile phone, webcam, and software subscriptions. If your employer provides technology or equipment, it remains the property of the company and must be surrendered to the employer when the staff member leaves that job.

Remote workers are often beholden to set office hours, in a particular time zone. So, if you live in Vancouver but work for a company headquartered in Toronto you might be expected to work from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time) to correspond with Toronto-based colleagues working 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time). Other companies give employees more flexibility. TELUS employees, for example, can work their eight-hour day anytime between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.; some start early and end early while others start late and end late. On really busy days, some workers will start early and end late making for a lengthy work day! Depending on family needs, some TELUS workers break up their day with blocks of time for work and family. You may love the opportunity to pick up your child from school every day, for example.

As Marketing Manager for Events Plus Management Ltd., Peggy Richardson promotes consumer shows including the two-day Westcoast Small Home Expo. She spends 90 percent of her time working remotely — at home and in her vehicle — and the balance of her time working onsite for events or in-office for scheduled meetings. Typically, she spends just four days each month in the office. Zipping around southern British Columbia in her vintage vehicle to visit clients and event locations, she’s also accustomed to getting work done on the road — at rest stops, ferry terminals, and coffee shops. She quipped, “I specialize in McDonald’s Wi-Fi.” She has learned the optimal parking spaces to make the most of complimentary internet access, with hot cups of tea and, occasionally, hot fries delivered right to her vehicle. While Peggy makes herself available when clients need her on evenings and weekends, she mostly keeps conventional office hours to align with her partner’s work schedule and their daughter’s school day and competitive ballet schedule.

While working from home offers lots of flexibility, your days of work are still controlled by your employer. Your job contract, employment terms, and/or seniority will determine how many vacation days, sick days, personal days, and any other time off you are entitled to. Requests for leave must be approved by your supervisor and the human resources department.

Employees are paid on a set schedule. Depending on your employer’s payroll policy, you’ll receive a steady paycheck monthly, biweekly, or on some other interval. The payroll system will deduct taxes from your salary or hourly rate and take care of reporting that income to Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), or a similar government body. You file taxes as an individual, not as a business.

2. Entrepreneurial Work

Entrepreneurial workers, typically, work for themselves. Their business efforts are self-directed. They may be self-employed as the owner of a business or, perhaps, someone who works as a representative for a network sales company such as Color Street, Rodan+Fields, or Discovery Toys.

When doing entrepreneurial work, you are in control of the projects, products, and services you work on. It’s up to you to decide what ideas and opportunities you pursue and you take on all the associated risks: financial, reputation, liability, etc. You’re also responsible for all the expenses of running the business from errors and omissions insurance to business license to human resource costs. If your work is successful you reap the rewards, and if it fails you absorb the losses. Day-to-day productivity to achieve success is up to you.

Elaine Tan Comeau is an entrepreneur based in Vancouver. For more than ten years, she has worked from home six days a week. She is the founder and CEO of Easy Daysies Ltd., as well as an author, speaker, and host of Elaine’s Kitchen Table (the podcast named for the place where she started her business). Easy Daysies’ success is indisputable with multiple award-winning products and it is one of the few companies ever to incite a bidding war amongst all five dragons on CBC’s Dragons’ Den. Elaine designed her business so that she can work from home at her kitchen table most of the time. This was a conscious choice so that she could work flexible hours which allow her to work around her children’s schedules most of the time. She also has a desk at the company’s warehouse facility where she can work, as needed. When necessary, she travels to meet with buyers across North America and for public appearances. Without question, Elaine and her company are a stellar example of the potential success possible when you work from home.

In addition to providing your own workspace, you have the added costs of running your business. Technology, furniture, and other home office supplies are all business expenses, a portion of which are tax deductible. You’ll be responsible for payroll, if you have employees, and depending on location and income, will be required to collect taxes from your customers. (Consult the CRA, IRS, or applicable revenue agency in your area to inquire about businesses and taxation.)

Furthermore, product-based businesses will have inventory to manufacture, warehouse, and manage. Don’t forget shipping supplies; all those boxes and packing tape add up! Meanwhile, service-based entrepreneurs will “stock” intellectual property such as lessons, speeches, ebooks, and more, plus their available time for billable one-on-one appointments, group meetings, and so on. Whether physical or intellectual, these items become assets of the business or, in other words, property of the entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneurial worker you set your own hours. Some industries require conventional 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. office hours while other industries allow the entrepreneur to work when it suits them. For example, a self-employed accountant might work 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday to Friday, in alignment with banker’s hours. In turn, a self-employed physiotherapist might work 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. from Wednesday to Sunday.

Many entrepreneurs end up working more than the traditional 40-hour week as they pursue their professional goals. This pace of work is not sustainable long term but it’s common among entrepreneurs especially as they develop and launch new products and services. Other entrepreneurs set up shop with plans to work part time allowing them to juggle other responsibilities such as childcare, eldercare, and personal wellness.

Entrepreneurs are paid when the business is profitable. Once the company has a steady revenue stream, the entrepreneur draws a salary, be it monthly, biweekly, or on some other interval. However, the entrepreneur is responsible for remitting business taxes such as Canada’s federal Goods and Services Tax (GST), Provincial Sales Tax (PST), or Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), or state taxes where applicable in the USA. In addition, the business must pay income taxes or corporate taxes to the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), or a similar government body.

Entrepreneurial business owners can structure their business in different ways, each with different financial risks, benefits, and obligations. In brief, a common business structure is a sole proprietorship, which is established when a person goes into business but there is no legal separation between their business finances and their personal finances. Alternatively, an incorporated business (inc.) or a limited liability partnership (LLP) creates a financial entity that’s separate from the business owner’s (or owners’) personal finances. The latter protects the entrepreneur’s personal assets.

3. Hybrid Work

Hybrid work offers the opportunity to work from home and work at the office. Both employees and entrepreneurs have the potential to work in a hybrid model. This means that they work some time each week in their home office and the balance of the week at their company’s office or other commercial space. Let’s look at some examples. These four women all do hybrid work from home offices in the Vancouver area:

• Shelley Neill is a full-time legal assistant with a personal injury law firm. She works from home one day a week, and this gives her the opportunity to focus on in-depth, detailed tasks without distraction. Meanwhile, four in-office days each week allow her to efficiently coordinate her caseload with colleagues.

• Sam Brulotte is an instructor with a college microbiology program. She works at the school three days a week setting up and teaching labs to nursing students. One day a week she does her marking from home. On the fifth day, she works from her car using a laptop and mobile phone data in the gaps between her children’s activities: hockey, dance, and gymnastics.

• Vandhana Misri is a broadcast coordinator for a regional television station. She prefers to work in the office where she has several large computer monitors but works occasional days at home, when needed, to accommodate eldercare responsibilities. In addition, she runs a small business from her home on weekends, catering Kashmiri-style meals.

• Felice Bisby is the in-house graphic designer for a leading charitable organization. As part of her employment, she has the option to work from the office or from home. This hybrid approach helps her achieve a favorable work-life balance, accommodating family needs and work requirements throughout the week.

In many respects, hybrid workers have the best of both worlds; the conveniences and cost savings of their home office combined with the ease of communication and sense of community while working in a commercial space some of the time.

One of the key skills that hybrid workers must master is the art of transitioning work from one location to another. You’ll need a workspace in both locations as well as your files and other information. Depending on the nature of your work, you might store your files in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• SECTION 1: Finding Your Way
• SECTION 2: Let’s Be Practical
• SECTION 3: Soft Skills
• Conclusion
• Download Kit
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Notice to Readers
• Self-Counsel Press thanks you for purchasing this ebook.