Working from home: the new normal
If your company has started to realize how a work-from-home arrangement could be the new normal, even after the COVID-19 lockdown, then keep in mind these key factors, which, according to a study, are what attracts home-based workers to employers: a high base salary, holiday pay, and government-mandated benefits.
According to data from Laws of Attraction (LOA), a free online tool by jobseekers’ platform Jobstreet Philippines (www.jobstreet.com.ph/en/cms/employer/laws-of-attraction), the majority of full-time home based workers, like office-based ones, prefer employers that provide them with mandatory government benefits (96 percent), double pay during holidays (94 percent), and a high base salary (86 percent).
LOA gathers its insights from a Jobstreet-commissioned survey conducted by Kantar TNS, which was conducted last year among 18,000 of the platform’s users ages 18 to 65.
Aside from compensation, home-based workers also look for opportunities for career growth. Specifically, they are enticed by promotion opportunities (78 percent), clear growth plans (70 percent), skills development coaching (57 percent), and mentoring programs (52 percent), according to the study.
Around 82 percent also said that they expect to be paid for their overtime work, and be allowed to switch off from work during public holidays (72 percent), which reveals how, even though they are working from the comfort of home, such workers still place a premium on work-life balance.
“Laws of Attraction is trying to tell us that people are looking at many drivers when joining a company,” says Ryan Tordesillas, senior sales manager of Jobstreet Philippines.
According to LOA, survey results are very similar for both full-time and part-time home-based workers.
As for job categories, Jobstreet reveals that, based on their database for top home-based roles, teaching gigs are the most in-demand, with a monthly average salary of P37,000. This is followed by customer service (P42,000), and IT/computer software (P73,000).
While the perks of working from home is evident during these times—less risk of COVID-19 getting passed around—Jobstreet recommends such set up for companies that are seeking to cut costs, or those still in the startup stage, with no set revenue or physical workplace yet. The flexibility such arrangement offers is also an advantage, as it allows employees to have work-life balance while helping their companies achieve its business goals.
Tordesillas recommends that organizations explore the LOA tool on their own to get insights that are specific to their needs. He encourages, especially, companies based in provinces to use LOA data in order to convince jobseekers nearby to at least work near their homes, rather than in the usual urban centers an hour or two hours away.
“My advice to companies in provinces: Be visible online, too, because jobseekers nowadays are very internet-savvy. If they can’t find you online, then that forces them to look elsewhere, like Manila, or even overseas,’’ he says. “All you need is data to compete. That’s why we’ve broken these down, through LOA, so hirers can see the data through different lenses.”
