Benefits of Freelancing or Contract Work

There is a shifting paradigm in working patterns of office workers in the past few years. Increasingly, we are seeing more contract workers, freelancers and flexible jobs. This has risen from the recognition that work does not have to conform to the traditional nine-to-five lifestyle – as long work gets done and when one is productive, there is no basis to have strict rules on when and where to work.

Work-at-home jobs have given many current aspiring-homemaker office workers to consider that avenue. In Mark Penn’s MicroTrends , even men are considering the work-at-home route to spend more time and energy at home with their children. What are the factors these people consider when switching from a nine-to-five job to a home-based job? Here are 3 main reasons:

FLEXIBILITY

As mentioned above, this is the foremost reason why many people opt for home jobs. Flexibility in working at home comes in two forms: time and place.

Working at home allows you to schedule work around your life instead of the other way around. Work can be done after the children is put to sleep or sent to school. You get to avoid the lunch hour rush and pay your bills or run errands when everyone else is at office. Having time flexibility allows you to spend quality time with your children when they need them the most – after school doing homework, attending school events important to your kid (like their first baseball match or parents-teachers meets).

Location flexibility is increasingly facilitated by technology. With wireless broadband and cheaper cellphone bills, you can even work in the closest coffee joint near your children’s school before picking them up.

SCALABILITY

Working nine-to-five requires you to meet the demand of the job. In freelancing and to a certain extent, contract working allows you to scale your job demands as and when you want to. Work can be scaled back during needy periods when your children needs more attention – be it if they are just toddlers, when your 14-year old teenager needs supervision for his coming exams or even a time when the whole family is free enough to take a vacation abroad. And when the family needs a little more cash, you would just have to take on more projects or jobs as needed.

INTERESTS

Work at home especially freelancing allows you to pick and choose jobs. Not only you get to select jobs that you have deep interests in, you get to do the jobs you are truly good in, reaping better productivity and possibly, higher earnings.

As the world’s office progresses into a more contractual culture, even nine-to-five jobs in big companies will take on a more ‘flexible and scalable’ look.. Some of us will be our own businesses by being full time freelancers with increasingly availability online. Websites like Elance and GoFreeLance are paving the way for greater opportunities to have a greater control over our own lives. And also, giving us more freedom to be involved in where we ought to be – our family.