You have a job and have been working with a great company for the longest time. Yay or Nay?
It’s great pay, great people, great environment but what would make it even better is if you could do the same work, with the same compensation or higher while working from home.
Cool right?
The problem with working in an office is that for one, you’re not saving as much because you have to shell out some money for transportation, food, clothing and more because you are working outside of the home.
You have to commute, buy business clothes, spend precious money on food and who knows what else. Not only that, you’d have to endure hours of traffic or the loooooong lines at the MRT (Metro Rail Transit) or LRT (Light Rail Transit) to get to work so chances are, by the time you get to the office, you’re already stressed out!
The good news is, there are a LOT of other work options available.
And the best part? They can easily be found online, so you can work and be at home all at the same time!
How cool is that?
You save money because you don’t have to spend money on the things that I’ve mentioned above. Yay!
However, online scams are everywhere and they have many ingenious tricks to dupe you into thinking that you’re actually signing up for a legitimate online job.
To be honest, the scams are designed to look like genuine offers. What’s the quickest way to know for sure if it’s a scam? They ask you to pay them money for registration, tax reasons, permits and more. If a job site is asking you to give money to them, then it’s probably a scam and it’s best to stay away from those.
Some online scams are also phishing sites that will try to get your information and use it for things that are not legal. Legitimate online jobs don’t ask you for money. Why? Because these are big companies and they earn money in a different way.
To know more about the most commonly identified job scams, see How to avoid job scams. Also keep in mind that a genuine job platform can still have some people who are trying to scam employees, so use the same discretion in choosing an employer.
See how Time Doctor’s easy-to-use time tracking software can help your team be more productive.
There are several options for legitimate home based jobs, depending on your skill sets or preferred position, the most common are:
Full-time/Part-time online jobs:
There are several online platforms that offer full-time or part-time employment. This type of work is somewhat the same as that in an office.
Full time work at home is not limited to programmers or virtual assistants. We have accountants, systems and network administrators, customer service representatives, technical support representatives, medical transcriptionists, and so on.
Here are some of the top online platforms that offer full time and/or part time jobs:
Upwork – this is where thousands of professional freelancers come to work in a variety of fields.
OnlineJobs.ph is similar to Upwork, where you can be hired as a freelancer as well as a full-time or part-time employee.
Craigslist is an online classified ad posting system for items for sale to job postings and other services.
Projects Based
Projects are an excellent choice for short or long term work (depending on the task) that doesn’t require an extended contract.
You usually can’t even be categorized as a part time or full time employee if you are working on project basis. Some of the most common examples for this type of work are graphic design, 400-500 word articles about certain topics, transcription of audio files, typing out hand written documents, and more.
The top three sites for Projects based employment are:
Upwork has a large database of professional freelancers that can get the job done. One of the pioneers in the work-from-home arena.
Freelancer has a large database of freelancers (similar to Upwork) where you can list yourself to be hired
PeoplePerHour is a smaller platform compared with the first two where you can go to find jobs and contracts.
Other Projects based sites:
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.
crowdSPRING
Crowdsite is similar to 99designs. Contest holders can start a design competition for logos and graphics that you can use for your business.
With HireTheWorld, You can get access to thousands of freelance designers from all over the world.
199Jobs can get various jobs done for only ₱199 each.
Fiverr can get you anything for $5
BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)
BPO companies are sometimes aptly called “call centers” or “contact centers”. They often do offshore business that caters to the needs of companies from all over the world who outsource their employees to distant countries, such as the Philippines.
These BPO companies have sprouted like mushrooms and nowadays, there are call center offices in whichever direction you turn your head (no kidding!).
Another type of BPO is the home based type or Online BPO which pretty much does the same thing: outsource workers who are willing to work from home. However, as this is a “Business”, there are certain requirements, namely fast and reliable internet connection, a desktop or laptop with updated hardware and call center software, an actual workspace from home which should be quiet and free from distractions. The most common type of work caters to English tutorial services, VA or virtual assistant services and other IT related work.
Some popular BPO companies that allow you to work from home:
Virtual Coworker has a recruitment team here in the Philippines which makes the entire hiring process an ease because you are being screened by a Filipino.
SourceFit offers offshore staffing solutions for small and medium businesses worldwide.
2ndOffice have various job offerings for Filipino workers from data entry to marketing jobs and more.
Online English tutorial BPO companies
Other BPO companies that allow you to work from home include:
- Outsourced
- Big Outsource
- Virtual Done Well
- Virtual Staff Finder
- Pepper Virtual Assistant
- 5 Star VA
- WebFocus Solution
And here are the top office-based BPOs in the Philippines
- Accenture Inc.
- Concentrix
- JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A-Philippine Global Service Center
- 24/7 Customer Philippines Inc
- Teleperformance
- TTEC Holdings, Inc.
- Sutherland Global Services Philippines Inc.
- Sitel Philippines Corp.
- Deutsche Knowledge Services Pte. Ltd.
- Sykes Asia Inc.
- IBM Daksh Business Process Services Philippines Inc.
- Aegis PeopleSupport Inc.
- TeleTech Customer Care Management Philippines Inc.
- IBM Business Services Inc.
- Telus International Philippines Inc.
- Shell Shared Services (Asia) B.V.
- HSBC Electronic Data Processing (Philippines) Inc.
- ePLDT Inc.
- VXI Global Holdings B.V.
- Emerson Electric (Asia) Ltd.
- StarTek International Ltd.
- IBM Solutions Delivery Inc.
- Sykes Marketing Services Inc.
- SPi Technologies Inc.
- Genpact Services LLC
- Macquarie Offshore Services Pty. Ltd.
- Thomson Reuters Corp. Pte. Ltd.
- AIG Shared Services Corp. Philippines
- Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd.
- Lexmark Research and Development Corp.
- ANZ Global Services and Operations (Manila) Inc.
- Maersk Global Service Centers (Philippines) Ltd.
- Manulife Data Services Inc.
And in case you’re wondering how your employers will be able to send you your pay, here is a blog where you can see a list of the many ways to send money to the Philippines, including details on transaction fees and more.
Rob Rawson is a co-founder of Time Doctor which is software to improve work productivity and help keep track of what your team is working on, even when working remotely.