Blog Blog Blog It Up!: My Dream Job Come True

I did it!! I got the job of my dreams-- working for Apple.

I am so excited to be working for a company that I truly look up to and something that I know I will love doing. I will be a part of the UGA At-Home Advisers that work remotely from home for AppleCare. I will be supplied with all the tools and knowledge base to answer the common problems and questions Apple users have about their products. Since I love technology and enjoy helping people, this job is the perfect match for me.

In light of my new job starting in May, I thought I would do some research on working from home, to see the ups and downs of it, and perhaps get some advice from people who already have worked from home. What I found was very interesting and offered me some great perspectives that I wanted to share.

Ever since CEO Marissa Mayer banned Yahoo employees from working from home, the topic has received extensive research and discussion, even some heated criticism. According to Mayer, she made the decision to boost morale for the rest of the staff. She found that full-timers who worked from home often 'did little work' for Yahoo. After receiving criticism over the ban, Yahoo responded saying "This isn't a broad industry view on working from home, this is about what is right for Yahoo right now." Seeing these different perspectives, I decided to look more into the cold hard facts about working from home.

In a study conducted through Evolv, done exclusively for Mashable, they found that working from home seems to make employees way more loyal to their company; however, the more months they stay at home, the less productive they are. The study was conducted on 21,000 hourly employees over 180 days; both at-home and in-office workers and then comparing the numbers. Employees who are allowed to work from home are significantly more likely to stick around with a median retention rate that is 28% higher than those that work in the office. However, they also found that after 90 days at the company, the office workers become faster than the work-at-homers. Those remote employees hit a plateau at day 120-- and after 150 days of logging in from their house, they actually start to get slower again. Here is a chart made available from the study where 'survival' is the likelihood that these hourly employees are still working up to par:

"People who work from home appear to get complacent at some point" said the managing director of analytics at Evolv. So does this mean we can expect that work-at-home jobs will start disappearing?

According to another Mashable post, as technology continues to evolve, via new access on mobile, social and collaboration, we can expect even more growth in working from home. The number of Americans working from home has jumped 41% since 1991.

While the work-from-home lifestyle brings significant perks, it's not without significant challenges. You may not deal with the daily commute or rush-hour traffic, but there'a new set of struggles that are unique to the home office. They lay out these challenges as:

You can't stay focused
You lose boundaries
You work too much
You feel isolated

These seem like legitimate challenges, ones you probably never would have thought about while in the office. Some reactions were expressed over Twitter from at-home workers, exemplifying the challenges listed above. "My experience from home-working is that, for me, it stopped being 'I work at home' and it became 'I sleep in my office'. I put in more and more hours and as an online marketeer/SEO was able to focus in the peaceful environment of home away from the distractions (and social contact/fun) of an office. So I was very productive... but I didn't enjoy it."

From Apple's point of view, they may be using it to their advantage. This sort of decentralized approach is gaining a lot of steam in the tech industry, because it saves on overhead and allows them to recruit the most qualified individuals without worrying about geographic restrictions or relocation issues. And by recruiting college students at a young age, they are able to mold their minds for a future career at Apple. College students grew up with using Apple products so it makes sense that they seem to know them best and be able to support Apple's vast customer base.

These two perspectives have given me a great well-rounded picture of what working from home might be like. I'm glad I now know some things to look out for and some perspectives from employees themselves. Despite the significant challenges, and because of the great perks, I really don't think I'm going to mind working from home like this...