Looking for a remote job due to Covid anxiety

A number of employees have been feeling anxious about the return to the office, and the latest announcement won’t suit everyone.

Covid has changed how we view work. If employees can work where and when they want so long as the job gets done, then they are likely to be more engaged with work and more effective. Good employees want a voice, they want to feel part of the decision-making process, to feel they are trusted and valued, and what better way to achieve that than to let them decide their working pattern and take responsibility and accountability for their performance. The 9-5 regime has disappeared, as long as the job gets done that’s all that matters; if you arrange your time so as to fit work around childcare, chores, exercise, studying or whatever else matters to you, then it’s a win-win scenario.

Parents, caregivers and people with chronic illnesses and disabilities are often in the market for work-from-home roles, as are people who are looking for more flexible hours or the ability to work from anywhere. Some of these roles are part time while others are full-time roles. If you’re hoping to work from home, there’s a wealth of jobs available, requiring a variety of skills and experience levels and many of them pay salaries comparable to full-time, on-site jobs.

Remote/working from home tags are now popular search terms on websites, including workingwise.co.uk, Totaljobs, Reed and Indeed. The number of jobs is growing and some offer home-based retail jobs. I’ve looked at three different sites and found thousands of work from home jobs, with scores of them in retail.

There are a number of questions I’d recommend you ask yourself as you start to plan for the future. Would you like to remain in the retail industry? What are your transferable skills to alternative sectors? How many days a week would you like to work? Have you written down the non-negotiables (one being securing a permanent work from home job) and the ‘nice to haves’? Do you know when to check-in with yourself and are you in control of your anxiety?

If you’re happy to look at other sectors, you’ll open up a whole host of potential roles – perhaps focusing solely on the retail sector at the start might be limiting.

Good luck!

*Liz Sebag-Montefiore is a career coach and Director of 10Eighty, a strengths-based HR consultancy. For more information, please visit www.10Eighty.co.uk.

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