Coronavirus is proving what we already know: People can work from home

2624
SHARE

Other companies have followed suit. Boeing, which recently suspended operations at one of its Puget Sound facilities, was also encouraging all employees whose jobs allowed for telecommuting to work from home. But it’s not just large corporations jumping on the remote work bandwagon.

Twitter is filled with posts from users who are adjusting to their new home offices. Users posting under the hashtags #WorkFromHome and #WorkFromHomeFails are sharing cute photos of their kids and pets “helping” them with their work. Others are sharing comics that cover work-from-home topics — for example, satirical commentary on the reality that many in-person meetings could, in fact, have been emails. I’m sure we’ve all seen that one (and giggled/groaned).

But like I said, telecommuting isn’t new. It’s something gig workers have been doing for years now. Freelancers, independent contractors, consultants and other nontraditional players who make up the gig economy have been working from home, or the coffee shop, or the beach, for years. And we make up 20% to 30% of the U.S. workforce, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. And that figure is from 2016. Remember that this part of the workforce is growing.

A growing gig economy

I’m also a freelancer. And I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now. Other freelancers I know of have been doing this for a decade or longer. This isn’t new. We use platforms like UpWork, fiverr, and freelancer.com to connect with companies in search of freelance work. We also build a client base the old-fashioned way — we cultivate networks and follow leads. But the point is, businesses have been using freelancers who work from home for some time now. Otherwise, platforms that connect businesses with freelancers wouldn’t exist.