- How to make £110,000 from your sofa – the highest paying work from home jobs
The number of people who have adopted hybrid working – a mix of working from both the home and office – has risen from 13 percent in early February 2022 to 24 percent in May 2022, according to the ONS. Furthermore, working remotely doesn’t have to mean a pay cut – in fact, many remote jobs pay more than office work and could lead to added savings as there’s no commute.
Demand for remote jobs hit its highest level in August this year and the good news is working-from-home roles pay £6,000 on average more than office positions.
A recent study by HR experts Remote showed remote roles in the UK can pay more than office-based ones – up to as much as £31,000 a year more.
Jobs for remote estate agents are being advertised at around £58,947, which is more than £30,000 more than the average salary for estate agents each year, according to Remote. Architects are also paid far more when working remotely than they are in the office.
Job vacancies advertised an industry average salary of £31,595 for office-based roles, rising to £62,000 for remote job vacancies.
One reason for this could be that employers have fewer operational costs so are able to pass these savings onto their workers.
Source: Express
2. IT Job Market: 2022’s Wild Ride and What to Expect for 2023
On the final day of December 2021, job openings in the information sector doubled to 217,000 from 109,000 on the last day of 2020, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Bureau was also reporting higher wages and salaries — up 4.5% for the 12 months of 2021 compared to an increase of 2.6% the previous year.
Even as tech giants such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft were pushing hybrid plans, job postings for remote work continued to grow at an unprecedented pace, especially in high-demand areas such as DevOps, data science, and IT security. As tracked by the Ladders, which monitors jobs that pay $100K-plus at several job posting sites, postings for remote positions increased in early 2022 and in some fields reached a high of 35% to 38%.
It’s really what IT pros wanted, according to the 2022 InformationWeek Salary Survey, where those polled rated the ability to work remotely at the top or close to the top of what mattered most to these professionals about their jobs.
This openness to remote work during the pandemic and well into 2022 may have made it easier for organizations to recruit experienced non-traditional labor into the market to help with the talent shortage. For instance, remote work and flexible schedules may appeal to retired IT workers.
What’s Ahead in 2023?
Employers are likely looking carefully at budgets and head counts. But it will be a challenging line to walk. Employers have spent the past few years investing in employee experience programs and focusing on retaining their valuable talent. An abrupt change in direction such as mass layoffs will likely sour companies’ reputations as employers.
Yet, even as big tech sheds jobs, there are enterprise technology projects still to be completed across multiple industries, and there are a number of emerging skills that remain in high demand such as cybersecurity, cloud, and artificial intelligence.
Source: Information Week
3. There are 2 types of companies, Harvard remote work expert says: Embrace work from anywhere, or live in denial
Heading into the new year, some bosses were vocal in insisting that they could bring their employees back to the office. But Raj Choudhury, an economist from Harvard Business School, sees evidence that it’s already too late for that and warns that employers that don’t adapt quickly will be left behind.
Choudhury believes that it’s not bosses who shape industries, but top talent; and if companies want to lure that talent, they need to offer flexibility. The best workers want freedom to work from anywhere, and they’re more productive when they do so, according to the economist’s own research.
Choudhury warned that firms that try to “drag back time” from employees in the current labor market with return-to–office mandates will see their best workers leave.
Still, almost half of American CEOs said they want their workers to return to the office in an October CEO survey conducted by Fortune in collaboration with Deloitte. CEOs fear that remote workers may be less productive and less engaged.
And recent studies have shown that CEOs’ concerns about remote workers may be overblown. In the Future Forum’s October quarterly Pulse survey of 10,000 white-collar workers, employees with “full schedule flexibility” had productivity scores that were 29% higher than those with no flexibility. And a recent Harvard Business Review study found that remote workers are actually more engaged than their peers.
Remote work isn’t a solution for every employer, but some experts argue that sensationalist headlines about remote workers having hidden second jobs or slacking off have led business leaders to fear an inevitable transition in the way the labor market functions.
Source: Fortune
4. Here are all the new salary transparency laws going into effect in 2023
New salary transparency laws going into effect Jan. 1, 2023:
California: According to California’s amended labor code, employers with 15 or more workers will be required to list salary ranges on job postings on a company’s hiring page or third-party website like RemoteHub or other job board. Business must also provide the pay scale to an employee for the job they currently hold, upon request.
Washington: Washington’s Equal Pay and Opportunities Act states that employers with 15 or more employees must share the pay range for a job on any digital or printed ad on the company’s hiring board or listed on a third-party site. The law applies to companies that have at least one Washington-based employee, engage in business in the state or are recruiting for jobs that could be filled remotely by someone in the state.
Rhode Island: Rhode Island’s amended Pay Equity Act doesn’t require employers post pay ranges on job ads, but it does say businesses must provide the range to job applicants upon request.
Other pay transparency legislation is pending in Massachusetts and South Carolina.
Experts say it’s only a matter of time before listing salary ranges on job ads becomes the norm.
For example, businesses across the U.S. rushed to Payscale to strategize their range rollouts as soon as laws passed in California and Washington, says Lulu Seikaly, a senior corporate attorney focusing on employment law at Payscale. Even if they’re not headquartered in states with salary range laws, they could be bound by them if they plan to hire remote workers, or they may want to compete with big-name companies in Silicon Valley and on the coasts.
“Progressive companies are seeing the writing on wall,” Seikaly says. “They understand that if they post a competitive range, it’s a great branding opportunity for them.”
Source: CNBC
5. Establishing A Sense Of Belonging For Remote Hires: A Roadmap For The First 90 Days
Employees must feel that they are valued and that they can be their authentic selves at work. A recent BetterUp labs survey found that 52% of employees want more connection at work and those with a low sense of belonging have a much stronger intention to quit.
Experience leading a 100% distributed workforce has taught me that the first 90 days of an employee’s experience are key to establishing a sense of belonging at work. Here are my top strategies for creating a welcoming remote work culture for new hires.
Before the first day: Tell them what it means to work at the company.
Offering a well-defined employee experience from the first moments of engagement is essential.
This starts with the very first recruiting interaction the employee experiences, which is often the job listing itself. Don’t just phone it in with boilerplate language. Be thoughtful in describing what is unique about your company and the people who choose to work there. Solidify this with the HR onboarding process, providing welcome kits and including a guidebook for key aspects of internal culture, including communication norms.
30 days: Overwhelm them with attention.
Those initial weeks of a new job can feel lonely—before anyone knows who you are or needs anything from you. Overcome those feelings of isolation by filling the first weeks for new hires with meetings. If there is urgent work to dive right into, great! If there’s a natural period of ramping up, schedule introductory appointments with colleagues and teams to accelerate the period of acclimation.
60 days: Reinforce inclusive policies and practices.
It’s essential to create remote communities that encourage employees to bring their whole selves to work. This starts with encouraging or requiring people to show up fully on screen, cameras on. Virtual backgrounds are overrated. Sure, they hide that messy pile of clothes, but they also hide personal insights, like what people hang on their walls and who walks in the background. Encourage new hires to show their actual backgrounds when working remotely to reduce the distance between their home environment and their work environment.
Managers can foster connecting points by helping new hires find employee resources and affinity groups and making introductions to diverse team members. When employees look up and around the organization, they need to see people they can relate to—to believe that it’s possible for someone like them to succeed here.
90 days: Ask them how they feel.
Establishing a consistent form of engagement surveying is critical to keeping the organization honest about whether you are creating a work environment that fosters belonging in the employee’s initial introduction period with your company. A simple pulse-check survey at the 90-day mark will bring useful insights, as well as systematic skip levels, to ensure consistency of experience across teams.
An engaged and connected workforce is key to the success and outcomes of a remote-first company. To continue to foster a sense of belonging, set up consistent channels for information-sharing and gathering—and less formal communication by or to leadership. It’s essential from the outset to convey that the leaders in your company care about every new hire.
Source: Forbes
6. 78% of Employers Are Using Remote Work Tools to Spy on You. Here’s a More Effective (and Ethical) Approach to Tracking Employee Productivity
78% of employers use software to spy on employees. But the research — and common sense — shows that this tempting practice does far more harm than good. And 83% of employers acknowledge that it’s ethically questionable. When you spy on your people, you trade trust, culture and morale for sketchy data and productivity theater.
Productivity surveillance damages the relationship between workers and companies and makes employees more likely to lie, cheat, steal, pretend to work and quit.
43% of remote workers feel employee surveillance violates their trust; 59% feel anxiety; 26% feel resentment, and 28% feel underappreciated when subjected to such technologies. Tracked employees are nearly two times more likely to fake work and they spend over an hour extra online every day on average just to be seen by colleagues and managers.
Millions have quit jobs because of poor working conditions and bad work-life balance and productivity surveillance decays both. Nearly 60% of tech workers said they would reject a job offer if they were surveilled by audio or video to enforce productivity. Roughly half would leave a job if their employers used audio and/or video surveillance, facial recognition, keystroke tracking or screenshots.
DEX is distinct from productivity surveillance because it scrutinizes things, not people: device performance, network speed, application crashes and the like. Companies use this data to enhance the technology experience for workers, not to evaluate productivity or punish them. This is precisely what employees want: 90% say their company’s digital experience has room for improvement, 82% say the delayed resolution of IT issues slows employees down and 68% say DEX has a high or critical level of influence on revenue.
Source: Entrepreneur
7. Will remote work continue in 2023? Companies are starting to pick sides
Executives generally fall into two camps on working from home, which surged during the pandemic when workers gained leverage during a tight labour market. Some believe it has advantages, like happier employees, while others say company culture is built in the office.
“There’s a genuine divergence between organizations,” said Melissa Swift, a workforce transformation leader at consultant Mercer. “You’re starting to see companies pick sides.”
That said, remote work looks like it’s here to stay. Gallup projects that about 75 per cent of remote-capable workers will be hybrid or fully remote in the long term.
Here are the top reasons why experts say remote work will continue in 2023:
- Retention
Hybrid work boosted employee satisfaction and productivity, slashing attrition by 35 per cent, according to a study published this summer by researchers at Stanford University, the University of Chicago and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.
“Employees experienced new levels of fulfilment working from home, and it has been hard for companies to justify walking that back,” said Caitlin Duffy, research director at consulting firm Gartner.
- Recruitment
Remote work opens recruiting to a bigger geographic area and a larger talent pool. That’s a major advantage, especially for specialized roles where qualified candidates are hard to find. It also gives employers, such as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which has struggled to convince people to move to Washington, a better shot at winning talent from tech hubs on the West Coast.
- Recession cost cuts
This summer, Yelp Inc. closed its New York, Chicago and Washington offices with plans to put the savings toward hiring and employee benefits. Not long after, Lyft Inc. rented out about half of its office space in San Francisco, New York, Seattle and Nashville. Other major companies, such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., have scaled back office expansion plans.
- Reversal risks
Taking maximum advantage of leverage in this way isn’t a good long-term strategy, according to Ben Granger, chief workplace psychologist at Qualtrics.
“Future candidates can see the comments from employees who left,” Granger said. “They can read the articles. Leaders would be wise to think about that.”
Source: Bloomberg
