To ask what you do for work (remotely)

[boymumx]

We have a toddler and I am pregnant with our second. We own a flat but are hoping to move to a house in a couple of years, but we need to get some savings behind us to do so.

So I ask how does everyone work from home please? Is there a specific site I can use to find part-time remote working jobs, etc? I have no affordable or free childcare available so I need something I can do online a few hours a day really!

Thanks in advance

I work in a call centre, and we work remotely. However, you would still need childcare as its not the sort of job where you could just drop things if your kids needed you, my daughter is 11 so I can get away with it more but any younger and I think it would be a struggle not to have childcare.

Some places are 24/7 though so you might find something when your children are in bed, you never know!

Best to look for something where the hours are completely flexible. I have been working remotely for years but our company policy is that no children under 12 are in the home whilst you are working. The company makes it clear that working from home is not a replacement for childcare. However, other companies are more relaxed, depending on the nature of the work. Doing the online chat for customer service for companies like Amazon that are open 24/7 might be your best bet.

My husband works in an administration and tech support role. His main role is admin and involves phonecards and handling lots of forms and stuff like that, however he is also the one who helps fix a lot of the tech issues or advises people how to do so. He works from home. Literally a laptop and some earphones is all he needs.

What are your qualifications? Do you have a degree; if you do, what did you study?

A lot of the reputable work-from-home job websites are niche to a particular sector.

I work in finance. It's impossible without childcare to WFH properly though. Even now they are 7 and 8 I nearly lost my mind in lockdown #1 when DH and I were both working remotely and the kids were home with us.

My friends who are currently working remotely are also in finance, tech, insurance, lawyers, PR consultant, food writer, editor at a broadsheet, project manager for large engineering firm, sales director for a consumer goods company, business consultant for one of the big 4, internal change manager at a multinational, COO at a hedge fund, media lead for a large NGO, charity fundraising coordinator.

None of us were WFH until March but many might stay that way for at least a few days a week after covid.

I don't do this but am.thinking of it.

Teaching English as a foreign language remotely.

You could build up a group of students that are online when you are "child free"

Project management in the Finance sector. My OH has also been WFH since March too. He’s an IT developer.
WFH is gradually driving us both round the bend, but I appreciate that we are fortunate to be able to do it.

I’m a senior civil servant. Have always been office-based by choice (and will return at least 3 days out of 5 post-Covid), although have a number of colleagues who always work completely or almost completely from home.

Even if you work from home, you’ll still need some form of childcare in almost all roles. There really are very few jobs that you can do whilst also trying to look after small children. Even in relatively relaxed companies, you can’t refuse to take a phone call or drop out of a client meeting or put an urgent workflow ticket on hold because Little Johnny has set fire to his hair and you need to go and extinguish the cranial blaze.

Have a look at Juggle Jobs. I know the co-founder well and she’s a gem, but it’s also a good recruitment place to look for very flexible roles - she originally set it up with the idea of parents in mind.

I work in a national role for a charity.

In normal times, it wouldn't be suitable to not have childcare. They're being relaxed at the moment but if when we go back to normal, the expectation will be that there is childcare in place.

Nothing without childcare, sorry.

(Well, you probably could if it was a situation as exceptional as a cranial fire! But most employers would object to you shushing a tantrum on a call, or feeding a baby, or trying to do naptime.)

I work from home for a charity - we all worked from home pre-covid too. All zoom meetings and online documents, though pre-covid there were also day trips to real places too. On the charityjob website you can do a location search for working from home jobs. That's how I found this job.

I would echo that WFH is not compatible with childcare. It means you have no commute, if your hours are flexible the school run is possible and it is much easier when kids need to be picked up from school in a hurry/emergency. If your hours are flexible it is also easier to break for childcare/cooking and go back to work once they're in bed.

But with very young children I had an on going rota of childcare with DM, DMIL and early years settings to make it possible.

I write educational resources for a large online resource provider (used to be a teacher) I'm part time, remote and on flexitime so I work school hours generally but as long as I go to essential meetings I can do my hours evening or weekends, which I do if I'm doing supply teaching (still do a bit) it's totally fine. You wouldn't need lots of childcare to do something like that, you would probably still need reliable cover for important meetings or for when hectic days were coming up!

Thank you all for your responses I agree that working whilst parenting would be massive turn off for employers. I mainly ask about it as my mother in law worked from home for 12 years whilst raising 4 boys!!! God knows how, but she did market research organising (finding people to do the market research for her clients, not actually doing it herself) so I know there is possibilities out there!

But I'm loving all the info and finding out what you do. It is very helpful. I've always worked in admin/customer service roles so I don't know much outside of your basic indeed.com search I'm afraid

Would you consider becoming a childminder? There seems to be a shortage everywhere.

Theres a thread in the money matters section on here, the make £10 a day thread, I used to make £1000~£1500 a month working for a company called Appen which is discussed a lot on there amongst others. It paid £10 an hour and as long as you did your expected hours for your project, usually 10-20 a week but you could do more than one project,you could work any time. It paid my daughter’s school fees for a year. The only reason I don’t do it now is because I found something in my field which is entirely on line.

Civil service... get in if you can. The work conditions are fabulous.

Flexi time (depending on role)
Great maternity benefits
Term time only contract
Pension

Get in if you can .

Senior civil service

My normal job is WFH at the moment, because of Covid. I suspect lots of WFH people are in the same boat, rather than doing “online” jobs you can do for a few hours extra pay per week.

I hope someone comes along with a more helpful response soon, but I just wanted to set your expectations. Be careful not to get sucked in to an MLM.

Can you work around your DPs hours? When my DC were little I worked part time evenings to save on childcare costs. Most call centres have positions that are part time evenings because it is a busy time and no one wants to work it! I actually worked in an emergency services control room. The money was good for the hours. It was bloody hard after a day with two preschoolers though.

I also WFH now in my current job. When I applied for it, it was not advertised as WFH. At interview my manager explained that she had purposely not advertised it as WFH as she wanted people who were interested in the role, not applying for it purely because it was WFH.

So WFH jobs aren't always advertised as such.

@Trickyboy

Civil service... get in if you can. The work conditions are fabulous.

Flexi time (depending on role)
Great maternity benefits
Term time only contract
Pension

Get in if you can .

Maybe it’s my department of the civil service (we are non-ministerial and independent, and most of us are accountants or solicitors or economists or all three) but I would really not recommend what I do to anybody who entirely wants their career to fit around their existing life. The performance management framework in my department is intense, it includes guided distribution scoring, and there’s very definite pressure (albeit supportive pressure) to develop, progress and keep moving through the grades. The civil service is an excellent employer for all the reasons you mention, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to anybody who didn’t want a “career” rather than a ”job”. Again, possibly department subjective.

Copywriting. Its almost impossible with toddler though, unless it's nap time. So I work from 6PM onwards when DH gets home.

Also a civil servant. Great flexi working etc. Still need childcare though.