Remote worker awards

Remote Employment has announced the Remote Worker Awards! They are currently working with prominent sponsors to highlight how remote and home working benefits the environment, business productivity and employees' quality of work life.
Everyone who works remotely or works from home and employers who have remote workers are able to enter. And anybody who wants to work from home can also enter to win a £15k home based franchise of their very own as well as other great prizes, one of them being a Garden Home Office worth £10k!
There are consumer awards for working professionals and anybody who wants a career change, as well as business categories for Home Businesses and Employers of Choice who allow their staff to work remotely or work from home. This is one of the UK's highest prize awards.
If you work remotely or work from home, have a home-based business or employ remote and home workers, the Remote Worker Awards is waiting to hear from you!
See more about judges, supporters, categories, terms and conditions, and how to enter at: Remote Employment

Practical tips on creating a work area at home

More than 20 million people work from home at least once a week in the U.S., according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2008 there were more than 2.5 million home based businesses in the UK.

Wireless technology has made this easy at a time when a struggling economy has forced many people to spend more time at home.

If you work at home full time or just require a place to sort mail, pay bills and check your e-mail, having a dedicated space to get the job done is essential.

Most people who didn't have a computer at home ten years ago have one now. A working area or office space when buying a house has now become a serious consideration for many. More and more people need a dedicated place at home to work from.

If you're short on space look for an unused pocket of space that can be fitted with shelves, cabinets, (electrical) power and a chair. Use your imagination! A Washington D.C. architect converted a bedroom cupboard in her apartment into her work space. She removed the clothing rod and installed shelves and a countertop that flips down as needed.

She also removed the cupboard door and replaced it with a bookshelf on wheels that's connected to a ceiling track. When she wants to close up her office, she simply slides the bookshelf in front of it. (For the non-architects among us, keeping the door works, too. So does installing a curtain rod to hang a pretty panel in place of a door.)

If that converting your cupboard sounds like a it of a gargantuan task, then consider smaller adjustments such as placing glass over an old table with an uneven surface, so you can keep the table and transform it into a functional desk.

Think beyond boxes for storage. Use jars and trays to hold supplies, or coloured boxes or plastic drawers on wheels.


Whether you have an entire room, a converted closet or a tiny nook carved out of a corner, the basic essentials for any well-run office are the same. You need a desk, a comfortable chair, storage, paper and pen, and proper lighting. You don't have to spend a lot.

Don't overlook vertical space, where tall bookcases or hanging shelves can provide extra storage. Using vertical space makes a space look cleaner, neater and less cluttered.

Have you got any useful tips for creating a working area at home? Write in and tell us! Share your ideas and mistakes, what you saved money on and what you indulged in.

Website review for teleworkers - Directgov

Are you employed and working from home or thinking about it? A question commonly asked is, ‘What are my rights?’

This page on Directgov (UK government website) explains the difference between homeworking and teleworking, and the pros and cons of each. It also covers security risks related to your work and the equipment you use.

Whether you want more flexible working hours and a work/life balance or not, Directgov provides information on working time regulations and contracts of employment, as well as a section and links on where to get help.

Genuine work from home schemes damaged by scams

This month the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched its 2009 Scams Awareness Month to raise awareness of mass marketed scams, which cost the UK public £3.5billion a year. Every year an estimated three million UK consumers fall victim to scams sent by post, email, text, the phone and internet.

One of the main target groups in the UK are work from home scams, particularly in the current economic climate when many are desperate to find a new or extra income to make ends meet. Often the schemes sound too good to be true and target the inexperienced work from home contractor.

Caution should be exercised on any proposal which requires the homeworker to buy into a scheme prior to them receiving any work.

"Only 2% of people who get taken in by these scams actually report them," said Mike Haley, Director of Consumer Protection at the OFT. "Our research shows that over 300,000 people each year are falling victim and it's on the increase because of the economic climate.

At Work Anywhere supports the OFT initiative and believes that such scams are incredibly damaging to the genuine 'buy in, sell on' opportunities.

These scams are also affecting the entire credibility of working from home/anywhere over the internet which is reaching out to non-traditional internet workers who need as much encourgement and assistance as possible. Crediblity is the keystone on which this potentially large market will be built upon.

What can I do?

OFT's advice to anyone who thinks they have been drawn into a home working scam is to contact them at www.consumerdirect.gov.uk or 08454 040 506.

The OFT is warning consumers to be vigilant during the economic downturn as scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated at using techniques to exploit personal and economic difficulties.

The OFT's advice to consumers who receive a possible scam offer is: 'Stop, think, and think again'. Do not be rushed into sending off money to someone you do not know. How likely is it that you have been specifically chosen for this offer? Millions of people are likely to have received the same offer. Think again - read the mailing carefully. If you are unsure, speak to family or friends and seek advice.

More on the BBC.

To commute or not to commute - for that is the question

What are the benefits of working from home? What makes it different from working in an office environment? Is it that moment of irate and carbolic fury upon the discovery that your crucial delivery deadline is likely to be stalled by the idiocies of your broadband provider, who naturally cannot be reached other than via a longwinded call centre in India?

And as charming as the young lady is in her endeavours to assist you, your fury is only increased when she informs you how wonderful the weather is at her location in comparison to how foul and cold it is at yours.

Or is it that moment when your oldest child decides to go cross-eyed, spurt quantities of blood from her nostrils and promptly passes out in a flopping backward motion across your dressing table whilst trying to explain, ‘Mummy, I don’t feel very well’.

Of course, had I been working in an office, after a two-hour commute through the lightly snow-covered excuse for a railway infrastructure, I would have arrived to find that our internal network was down due to a scheduled upgrade the previous evening and to be told by the IT support fascist that of course all my files would be safe and that the system would be up and running in the near future. The word future conjuring up decades of delay rather than minutes.

Then there is the moment when the spotty IT geek goes a slight shade of pale, gulps, apologises for the inconvenience whilst whispering on his mobile phone to his supervisor, smiles, and departs rapidly. Needless to say the network revives itself after four hours to which my workstation looks remarkably clear of the clutter that usually is strewn across the screen.

This would seem a bonus if the same did not apply to the ‘My Documents’ folder. Upon contacting the IT department as to where my files are, a quiet all-pervading silence is their only response and ‘We are working on it’ before the phone is put down.

At which point my daughter’s school has finally got through to me and the first lines of the school nurse, ‘Ah, Mrs Player, it’s so good we’ve been able to reach you. We have a slight problem, we believe that your daughter might be carrying a bug and we therefore would be grateful if you could remove her from our establishment as we wish her not to infect the rest of the school.’

The realisation that my workday has now just been cut in half at the cost of half a day’s leave and the damage to my professional reputation due to a lack of deliverance on commitments due to a combination of circumstances out of my control dawns on me like the resounding thud of an unwanted tax bill.

All of this is topped by the scintillating garnish if another commute back home.

Rewind, phew, that could have been my day, but it wasn’t, for my partner and I work from home developing a site for people who work from home or anywhere (www.atworkanywhere.com).

My daughter did pass out with blood spurting from her nose (she’s OK now), but my husband was able to accompany her to hospital for a check-up while I laboured in peace curled up under my warm duvet.

I did experience problems with my internet, but fortunately didn’t lose any work or miss any deadlines as the issue turned out to be a minor inconvenience caused by an OS upgrade conflicting with our router which did not affect Vista but crashed XP.

After completing my daily quota, I cuddled up with my oldest daughter on the sofa, lit the fire and watched some dubious TV. About to go out training now and tomorrow is another day and another dollar. I think the benefits of working at home outweigh the considerable tribulations of working in an office, despite days like this.

Home workers in the UK encouraged to claim tax

Broadband, the internet and mobile devices such as BlackBerrys and personal digital assistants have made working from home much easier. But the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is urging homeworkers to claim all the tax reliefs available to them from the taxman.
If you run a business from home, there are tax reliefs available. Chas Roy–Chowdhury, head of taxation at ACCA, says:

“If you have to work from home, HM Revenue & Customs’ has a website that
explains the benefits which are payable for home workers — tax relief is
available for the extra household expenses that have to be paid if working from
home. Typically these extra expenses include:

• the extra cost of gas and electricity to heat and light your work area




• business telephone calls




• the use of a car.

A percentage of tax relief is available based upon how much business use is
incurred. In addition a percentage of the 20% capital allowances may also
available on your vehicle based upon the percentage of business use.

You may also be entitled to a deduction for items used for your business —
either a capital allowance deduction for computer equipment or a straight
forward deduction for some items such as stationary and paper."

Also, there are other tax reliefs available for those who are an employee of a company, but have to work from home:
A flat rate deduction of £3.00 per week (from 2008–09) for each week that worked at home. This doesn't include the cost of business telephone calls. A larger amount if extra expenses are higher than £3.00 – but the taxman will have to see how these figures have been calculated. Chas Roy–Chowdhury, head of taxation at ACCA, says:

“HMRC makes it very clear that you will not be able to receive tax relief on
domestic expenses that are being paid, such as mortgage payments. And no reliefs
are available when it comes to using services such as phones and internet which
are also used for personal usage. There has to be a clear demarcation.

It is important to claim all tax reliefs if you are running a business from
your home, or if you are working as an employee at home; however small the
relief payments may be, it is still important to claim them. That old adage of
looking after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves is certainly
relevant in this case.”

About At Work Anywhere

The At Work Anywhere blog is the introduction to www.atworkanywhere.com which will be launched in January 2009.

The blog is about and for people who already work from home or from anywhere, or who would like to be in that position; freelancers, contractors, teleworkers, people running their own businesses, work from home mums (WFHM) and small and medium businesses.
At Work Anywhere is the brainchild of Greg Player and Victoria Player. It was a 'back of a cigarette packet concept' created out of need.
We wanted to find jobs where we could work from home/anywhere for different reasons, but we weren't interested in scams, 'buy and sell on', low end jobs, etc.
We wanted professional jobs that matched our backgrounds, challenged us and could be done from anywhere as long as we had an internet connection.
We didn't find much, did some research and discovered there were quite a few people out there in the same boat, thus the At Work Anywhere concept was born.
So At Work Anywhere will be a social and professional networking community for anybody who is or wants to be a contractor, freelancer or homeworker, and who has a professional skill set to offer.
In the meantime we want to write about and discuss issues affecting home workers, as well as keep you up to date with our own progress! Feedback is welcome.