My Commute to Work is Killing ME – Working From Home Insider

Do you ever consider how much time you spend commuting to work each day? I do. I calculated the amount of time I commute each year and I was floored. I then considered how many years it is until I retire and calculated the amount of time I will spend commuting. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach.

My commute to work is 90 minutes one way. This equates to 15 hours per week travelling back and forth to work 5 days per week. That’s one full day of waking hours per week (give or take), or about 48 days per year I spend travelling to work. I’ve been doing this commute for 5 years, so that means I’ve spent, give or take, 8 months commuting to work over the last 5 years. That’s crazy. I’ve another 25 plus years until I retire……if everything remains the same, I will be commuting for more than 3 years and 3 months between now and until I retire.

There must be other options?

As I consider spending over 3 years commuting to work I feel ill. The thought of everyday driving to the train station, standing on a hot or cold platform, sharing compact train seats with a variety of personalities then hurdling through the train station to jump on a crushed subway…..makes me want to find another option.

As I think, I see my options as:

Move closer to work
I move to another city
I look to move to another employer closer to home
I stay with my current employer and agree on a work from home arrangement
I work from home

I will take a look at each of these options in turn.

Move closer to work.

I use to live in Manhattan and Jersey City. This meant I had a 20-minute commute to work in one direction. I think a 20-minute commute is very reasonable. When living in Jersey City and Manhattan I never once thought about the commute. I remember how easy it was. I could leave home at 8:30 and be at my desk before 9 AM. The challenge when you live in Manhattan or Jersey City is space. Most people live in limited space apartments. I know I did. I wanted to have a garden, a place to grill and I wanted to drive. It’s not an option for me to relocate back to the city.

Move to another City.

Without thinking of the commute time, I have often pondered relocating to another city. More for the weather, as I am not a fan of winter. But, if I was going to consider relocating, I would need to have a job lined up or relocate with my current company. The unknown with another city is the commute. I am not sure how many cities in the USA don’t have rush hour commute issues.

I don’t wish to focus on either of these options for this post. I will come back in a later post to discuss as I think this is something worth considering. But realistically, if your company is prepared for you to relocate, there is a high probability that they may be prepared for you to work from home.

Find a new employer closer to where I live.

This is a viable option, but truth be told, if I was going to change employer, I would prefer to change employer and relocate to another city or have a work from home strategy that wouldn’t limit where I could live. Granted there are fewer risks and less upheaval when compared to moving to another city but if I am going to commit to a change, I want it to be a longterm solution.

Can I work from home part-time in my current role?

One viable strategy to consider is working from home one or two days per week. This way I can cut my commute by 20% – 40% of my commute and get 6 hours per week of my life back. Also, Gallup research has shown the optimal time for employees to be in the office is between 2 and 3 days per week. The caveat to this research, teams that operate work from home part of the week need to be in the office at the same time. This means, the days the team are in the office, the entire team is in the office. This strategy allows employees to have time at home to work on focus work and then time for meetings and collaboration while the entire team is in the office. I think this is an easy sell for most managers and employees. Particularly if your managers have other team members who have long commutes. In New York City, there are not many that don’t.

Can I work from home full-time in my current role?

There are not that many jobs today given the available technology that could not be carried out while working from home full time. The hurdle is convincing a manager or company to allow an employee who is currently working in the office to change to working from home full-time. Mostly due to the unknown. Many managers these days are open to working from home part-time but think full-time is a step too far. It’s easier to hire someone new that has agreed to work from home than a transition from in-office to full-time work from home.

How do I approach my manager to ask about working from home?

My guidance would be to lay out the analysis as I have outlined above. Have an open conversation with your manager, highlighting the amount of time you spend commuting each week, how much energy that drains you and how it impacts your performance towards the end of the week. Also, illustrate how technology assists you in being connected to the office 24 hours a day anyway.
Ask for an initial trial period to see how it would work for your manager and team. Your manager, while wanting to provide you with what you need, will be thinking of the wider team before making a decision. So, position the proposal acknowledging you’re concerned about the impact this change may have on your manager and team.
Be open to the manager suggesting the day or days you work from home during the trial. If the manager approves, its then on you to provide the feedback on the benefits and highlight that productivity has not dropped. You will likely find your productivity increases. Experience tells me, due to fewer distractions, most people can cover a days work in 4 hours when working from home.
Agree set days. It’s important that everyone gets familiar with a routine. Agree days and try not to move unless there is something that requires you to be in the office on one of the days you’ve agreed to work from home.
Communicate to the team the agreed schedule. Again, this is to ensure everyone knows the schedule and can plan accordingly.

How to be successful when transitioning to Work From Home

There are many ways to prepare your home to enable you to function from home productively. By far, the most important first step is to create a dedicated workspace. Just like in the office, having dedicated workspace at home informs you and anyone else in the home, that when you are in that space, you’re working. While not everyone can have a dedicated room, a dedicated desk or setup is the best way to approach working from home.

To ensure you have all you need to be your most productive at home, follow this checklist:

Computer – depending on your work, a laptop will provide more flexibility
Monitor – the bigger the better.
High-speed internet – your company may provide VPN or SOHO but you will require a reliable internet connection
Printer or multipurpose machine
Surge protector
Desk
Chair
Lighting
Telephone or VOIP
Software
Backup drive
File cabinet
(UPS) Uninterruptible Power Supply – if you have a home generator you should be fine
Paper Shredder
Fire-safe box
Storage
Coffee

What if my current employer won’t allow me to work from home?

More and more people are doing at least some of their work from home, according to data released from Gallup, 43% of employees working at least some of the time remotely. Employees are also spending more time than ever working from home.

Part of this is that companies are realizing that “flexible scheduling and work-from-home opportunities play a major role in an employee’s decision to take or leave a job,” the report revealed. Plus, businesses see that they can cut real estate costs by letting people work from home.

But, what if my current employer won’t agree to a work from home arrangement? There are many jobs that let you do the bulk of the work remotely, some can be low paying — but not always. So, can I replace my income by working remotely?

I see two broad categories. 1. Work for a single employer remotely; or 2. Self-employed and work multiple jobs remotely. We are moving to an age where employees who diversify their income can make greater amounts of money and have more income security than those who work for one employer.

Single employer option

There are many companies and roles that provide opportunities for me to earn income in excess of $100k. The questions I need to answer for myself, are those roles a good fit for me? is the income at a level I am satisfied with? and, am I all-in working for one company remotely?

40 Jobs that are Earning Over $100k Working From Home

Below is a list of 40 jobs that are earning over $100k. The list was taken from actual active job postings. I could have provided another 40 easily.

Senior medical writer
Back-end web developer
Senior technical writers
Consulting (this can cover many industry sectors)
Sales director
UX designer
Senior Content Strategist
Advertising
Business
Career Counseling
Insurance
Marketing, especially content and digital marketing
Publishing
Writing
Freelance writing
Clinical regulatory affairs director
Supervisory attorney
Environmental engineer
Director of quality improvement
Senior software engineer
Director of business development
Research biologist
Audit manager
Chief Marketing Officer
Financial Plan and Analysis
Global IT Security
Project Manager
eCommerce Director
Equipment Fleet Director
Business Analyst
Statistical Programming
Structure and Bridge Engineer
Payroll Manager
Qualitative user experience researcher
Senior iOS developer
Copywriting
Virtual assisting
Social media marketing
Digital marketing
Direct Sales

The list is more diverse than I thought it would be. While there are many jobs not in my wheelhouse, it’s interesting to see the breadth of the roles that are now available to those pursuing remote working. The concern I have when applying for work from home jobs is trust. I don’t know why, maybe because I’m not walking into a building and seeing a physical office, but I have some reservations.

To help get me over my trust hurdle I took a look at the top companies who are offering work from home jobs. The list goes on, but really, I have very little to worry about. I have no concerns about the quality of companies who provide work from home opportunities. Neither should you.

40 Quality Companies Hiring Work From Home Employees

Amazon – Recent telecommute job listings include software development engineer, senior solutions architect and digital platform marketing leader. Amazon also has a virtual customer service program that offers part-time work-from-home jobs that provide benefits for those working 20 or more hours a week. Amazon also offers work-from-home careers
Intuit – Intuit frequently has job listings for full-time telecommute positions for tax specialists such as certified public accountants or enrolled agents to provide its customers with tax advice. It also hires seasonal work-at-home tax specialists.
Aetna – Aetna has listed a variety of telecommuting job options on FlexJobs, including senior account executive, broker manager and clinical case manager. Many of its telecommuting positions require employees to live in certain cities or states, however. And some offer to telecommute only after working for a period of time and only for a select number of days each week.
United Health Group – UnitedHealth Group provides healthcare benefits for companies and their employees as well as state Medicaid plans and Medicare plans. Based in Minneapolis, it offers a variety of remote jobs — many of which require travel. Recent listings on FlexJobs include care manager, product manager, reporting analyst and Medicare consultant.
Salesforce – Salesforce is the top customer relationship management software provider. Its cloud-based platform allows businesses to manage and analyze customer activity and is used by companies such as Adidas, U.S. Bank and T-Mobile. Recent Salesforce work-at-home job listings include software engineer, build engineer, account executive and account manager.
Williams-Sanoma – Founded in 1956, this home products company operates Pottery Barn, West Elm, Rejuvenation and Mark and Graham in addition to its namesake Williams-Sonoma brand of stores. Many of its home-based jobs are call centre customer service positions. These positions pay $12 an hour, require only a high school degree and offer benefits such as health insurance and a 401k retirement plan.
Anthem – Headquartered in Indianapolis, Anthem is one of the top health insurance providers in the U.S. It offers work-at-home case manager positions that require some travel. Anthem also has had listings for remote and telecommute positions such as business improvement consultant, account and program director and marketing director.
Walden University – Professors who don’t want to be tied to a particular location might be able to get a virtual teaching job with Walden University. This online, accredited institution offers bachelor’s, masters and doctorate degrees in areas such as education, counselling management, health sciences, public administration and information technology. Walden University recently has had openings for full-time faculty, an academic program director and a field experience coordinator for master’s counselling programs.
Conduent – Based in Florham Park, N.J., Conduent provides business processing services such as digital payment processing, automated tolling and benefits administration. It was a division of Xerox but was spun off into its own company in 2016. It recently has listed openings for full-time work-at-home call centre representatives in several states. The position pays $11 to $11.50 an hour and offers benefits such as health insurance and a 401k plan.
Xerox – This Fortune 500 company is known for its office printers and copiers, but it also focuses heavily on research and innovation of business technologies. Xerox has been named to the Forbes and JUST Capital’s JUST 100 list for outperforming peers in worker pay and treatment. Several of its recent job listings have been work-at-home positions — including sales, client manager and account operations manager positions.
Humana – Based in Louisville, Ky., Humana is one of the largest health insurance providers in the U.S. It provides group health insurance and Medicare plans, as well as the TRICARE program for active duty and retired military members and their families. Several of its recent job listings that require registered nurse experience is remote or telecommute positions. And many of its sales positions are remote jobs but do require the employee to live in certain cities or areas.
Rev – Rev provides transcription and translation services using a team of freelancers. In fact, its mission is to “give more people the freedom to work from home.” In addition to translator and transcriptionist positions, Rev also has posted job listings for full-time telecommuting software engineer and a digital marketing manager with the option to work at home.
TTEC – Founded in 1982 as TeleTech, TTEC provides customer experience solutions for companies. For example, it provides both human talent and artificial intelligence — or what it calls intelligent virtual assistants — to provide customer service for companies. Recent TTEC job listings have included work-at-home customer service representatives, technical project manager and instructional media designer.
SYKES – Based in Tampa, Fla., SYKES provides customer-engagement services to companies around the world. Its services include phone, email, online and social media customer-service support. It hires full-time work-at-home customer service representatives and provides benefits such as health insurance, tuition reimbursement and a 401k plan.
Working Solutions – Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Working Solutions provides home-based sales and customer service representatives. The company employs work-at-home customer service representatives for a variety of businesses, including travel agencies, insurance and event ticketing. For most positions, job candidates can live anywhere in the U.S.
Convergys – Convergys is a customer service outsourcing company. It provides home-based agents for companies’ contact centres. Convergys regularly hires for work-at-home sales and service, customer service and technical support representatives. Benefits include health insurance, paid vacation and a 401k plan.
Cactus Communications – Cactus Communications is a medical communications agency that provides writing, editing and transcription services for pharmaceutical and medical device companies. It is based in Mumbai, India, but hires freelance contractors around the world. Recent job listings on FlexJobs have included full-time work-at-home translator positions and part-time editor positions.
Fiserv – Fiserv provides financial services technology solutions such as payment processing services for banks, credit unions, lenders and investment firms. It’s been named by Forbes magazine as one of America’s best employers. Fiserv’s recent telecommute and work-at-home job listings have included sales operations consultant, business strategy consultant, technical consultant and proposal management specialist positions.
Broadpath Healthcare Solutions – BroadPath Healthcare Solutions provides business, compliance and technology services to healthcare providers and payers such as insurance companies. It is headquartered in Tucson, Ariz., but offers full-time remote positions. Recent work-at-home job listings have included member service representative, case manager and quality analyst positions.
Commonwealth of Virginia – Virginia’s state agencies offer a variety of full-time jobs with the option to work remotely within the state. Recent flexible job listings have ranged from environmental health technical specialist to staff actuary to finance analyst.
K12 – Based in Herndon, Va., K12 provides online educational programs for students in kindergarten through 12^th grade. Its programs are geared toward military families, home-schooled children, athletes and travelling entertainers. It hires both part- and full-time teachers, guidance counsellors, speech pathologists, special education and other education-related positions that are mostly and entirely work-at-home.
Cigna – This global health services company has more than 40,000 employees and more than 95 million customers of its health insurance plans and products. It does offer work-at-home positions. Recent job listings included Medicaid audit compliance manager, medical director and pharmacy clinical program manager.
ADP – ADP provides payroll services, human resource software and tax and compliance services to businesses around the world. It’s been named to Fortune magazine’s most admired companies list and Forbes magazine’s best employers for diversity list. ADP offers some positions with the opportunity for remote work. Past job listings have included human resource outsourcing partnership manager, pharmaceutical research and development recruiter and research analyst.
Wells Fargo – Wells Fargo is one of the biggest banks in the U.S., headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo has offered some full-time positions with an option for remote work. Past job listings have included e-business systems consultant and information security engineer positions.
BCD Travel – Based in Utrecht, Netherlands, BCD Travel helps make corporate travel more cost-effective and streamlined for companies. It offers telecommute and remote job opportunities. For example, it has had openings for a work-at-home risk analyst, travel consultants who can work remotely and a senior outsourced travel manager who can work at home with occasional travel.
Thermo Fisher Scientific – Thermo Fisher Scientific is a biotechnology product development company with about 65,000 employees around the world. Some of its remote jobs require heavy travel. The company has had openings for full-time work-at home positions with just some or no travel, however, such as a computer system specialist to help with compliance development and a customer care centre process implementation manager.
SAP – Headquartered in Germany, SAP creates software that helps companies predict customer trends and streamline processes. It is the world’s third largest independent software manufacturer. According to FlexJobs, more than 15 percent of SAP’s employees work from home. Recent job openings with remote work options have included senior account executive and software development engineer positions.
Connections Education – Connections Education provides online kindergarten through 12^thgrade learning through its Connections Academy. And its Connections Learning provides online learning solutions for educational institutions. Connections Education hires teachers to teach virtual classes. The job listings typically require teachers to be in specific states, however.
PRA Health Sciences – Headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., PRA Health Sciences helps companies develop drugs in areas including infectious diseases, neurology, oncology and gastroenterology. It has more than 13,000 employees and has had openings for positions with the option to work remotely. Recent listings for full-time, remote jobs have included senior medical writer, clinical trial manager and medical copy editor positions.
Enterprise Holdings – Enterprise Holdings offers car and truck rental, fleet management and other transportation services. Among its brands are Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Alamo and National Car Rental. Enterprise has had several job listings for full-time, remote working opportunities for customer service and reservation sales representatives. These positions do require employees to live in certain areas, however.
VocoVision – VocoVision provides online speech, language and occupational therapy services. It also offers sign-language interpreters, teachers of the visually impaired and school psychologists through its video conferencing services. It offers work-from-home opportunities for speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, school psychologists, special education teachers and similar specialists.
Vivint Smart Home – Headquartered in Provo, Utah, Vivint Smart Home creates home security, home automation and energy management products. Its work-from-home opportunities include customer service and technical support positions that require answering calls about billing questions and technical and other issues.
Afirm – Headquartered in Fort Collins, Colo., Afirm serves insurance companies by providing risk mitigation, loss control and audit services. It recently has had openings for full-time, remote work positions such as auditor and loss control surveyor.
American Express – This financial services company offers personal, small business and corporate credit cards, as well as savings accounts and CDs. American Express is headquartered in New York and has more than 63,000 employees around the world. It does offer some work-at-home positions. Recent job listings have included virtual travel consultant and virtual collections specialist positions.
Magellan Health – Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., Magellan Health works with health plans, employers, Medicaid, Medicare and the federal government to provide managed care, behavioural healthcare and pharmacy management. It does offer some work-at-home opportunities. Recent job listings have included a senior manager for proposals position, registered nurse care manager and screening specialist.
Dell – Located just outside of Austin, Texas, in the city of Round Rock, tech company Dell offers a number of full-time positions that allow you to work from home. In fact, according to CNN Money, 25 percent of all Dell employees work from home in some capacity, and the company is looking to push that number to 50 percent by 2020. A quick search on the company’s website revealed a number of jobs — such as account executive, sales operations adviser and senior python software engineer — that included the option to work remotely.
Edmentum – Edmentum provides schools with research-based digital curriculum, assessments and practice items that are aligned to state education standards. This Minnesota-based company does offer some work-at-home positions. In the past, it has had job listings for teachers, data scientists and account manager positions.
LanguageLine Solutions – LanguageLine Solutions provides interpretation and translation services. On its website, it claims that it is the third largest language services provider in the world. It hires interpreters who can work at home receiving client calls and translating conversations. Language skills are essential for these positions.
Sutherland – Sutherland provides services to help companies improve their business processes and customer engagement. It works within a variety of industries, including healthcare, insurance, banking and government. Sutherland has posted job listings for a variety of work-at-home positions — such as sales agent, customer support and account management.
Leidos – This Reston, Va.-based company provides services for defence, healthcare and federal agencies. Leidos does offer some jobs with telecommute options but they typically require employees to live in a certain city. Recent examples of job listings with work-at-home options include network systems administrator, graphic artist and consulting employee to do technical editing of documents. Leidos offers a variety of telecommuting jobs available throughout the country.

Self-employed option

This option will provide more freedom but also rely on me to find a service I want to offer and then find clients to offer that service too. It also carries more risk. It is likely to take time to ramp up my income, and all the work from checklist items shared above, are on me to purchase. I do believe there is a greater opportunity for a higher income. This option provides the most flexibility in where I live and when I work.

There are no shortage of jobs being advertised but what if I want to work for myself. There are many professions that now enable me to create my own work schedule and pick who I work with. Below is a list of self-employed roles I can consider:

27 Realistic Work From Home Businesses Ideas

eCommerce – eBay, Amason,
Reselling
Bookkeeping
Financial consultant
Career coach
Life coach
Professional Speaker
Voice-over specialist
Eldercare
Consultant
Any kind of repair
Social media consultant
Video production
Web Design
Home Staging
Childcare
Uber Driver
Grocery Delivery
Light Hauling
Resume Writing Service
Freelance writer
Blogger
Academic tutor
Music tutor
English as a second language tutor
Fitness coach
Affiliate marketing

The list is very broad. There are a few roles I could see me actually doing. I will discuss those in later posts. Also, I have to consider how to find clients and what platforms or marketplaces are available to connect me with potential clients.

My plan is to approach my manager about working from home a couple of days a week. And move on a strategy of creating other revenue sources so that I can eventually move to work from home full-time; then hopefully relocate to somewhere in the sun. This strategy will take time but I will get back 6 hours per week if I’m successful. Having a plan brings a certain freedom to my mind.