How the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Will Launch the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs and At-Home Jobs
If you’re not familiar with the Coronavirus (Covid-19), John Oliver does a great recap. What you may be more familiar with, is the impact it’s having on our daily lives.
- Some sports are playing without audiences, while others are canceling altogether.
- Universities are canceling classes and transferring students to online classes.
- Companies around the nation are requesting people instead work from home.
The theme is Covid-19 has become a catalyst to decentralizing the way we work and live on a large scale. It was once a foreign concept to “work from home”, where only a small handful of jobs allowed this perk. However, in the past couple of weeks with the prevalence of Covid-19, this concept has been praised and encouraged in the name public safety from companies like Alphabet to Zoom. It’s a temporary change, but historically we have adopted these changes as a new norm. This new normal is presenting a new kind of freedom that will launch the next wave of Entrepreneurs and At-Home Jobs.
We Will Soon Have More At-Home Jobs Than Ever Before
For many, this may only be considered a temporary situation, but from a company perspective, there are many advantages to having a remote workforce.
- Real Estate is expensive. Not having to pay rent is a HUGE money saver
- Never buy office supplies again
- No requirement to buy snacks, food or drinks (coffee, tea, etc.) for an office.
- Not required to hire employees in your immediate geographical region (larger talent pool)
- Less employee sick days since they already work from home.
- More productivity since there’s no commuting or being late, plus lunch is close.
After this pandemic, many companies may retain a large portion of their workforce in “at-home” positions under the reasoning of “Public Safety”. If not for the Covid-19, there are many other illnesses (flu, cold, etc.) and safety concerns (work shootings, etc.) that are drastically minimized by reducing the physical workspace. Plus if we haven’t already eluded to it, there is a great deal of money to be saved by having employees work remotely.
Historically These Trends Result is Lasting Change
Like many things, we can look to the past to provide a glimpse of the future. Here are two precedents that started as a temporary solution to fix a problem but became a mainstay in our society.
Case Study 1 (Temporary Change In Office Culture Now Permanent) – Remember when you were young and dreamed of having your own office at work? Then those offices were shrunk to cubicles and finally, we arrived at the “Open Office Floor Plan”. The Open Office Floor Plan was a magical creation to increase communication, better productivity and enhanced collaboration as a team without walls. However, in reality, it assaulted your personal space forced to hear every neighbor’s phone call and overflow of EDM music. All while you and your coworkers sat at a tiny desk barely large enough for your computer and a sad cup of coffee.
Yet did any of these complaints result in companies abandoning Open Office Floor Plans? No, this concept has saved companies loads of money in real estate by fitting more people in a smaller space under the banner of “collaboration”. It’s an interesting example of a similar temporary workplace shift now becoming the cultural norm.
Case Study 2 (Temporary Change For Public Safety Now Permanent) – A bit of a different example, but one I love about public safety I learned from Adam Ruins Everything. In 1982, there was an incident where 7 people died from cyanide snuck into Tylenol bottles. No one was sure who did it, but because all the news coverage about aspirin bottles possibly containing malicious poison, the world went nuts. With a PR problem that aspirin bottles may contain poison (from this single event), Tylenol introduced the first “tamper-resistant seal” now seen on every bottle.
It was a temporary change meant to reassure the public that their drugs were safe during that troubling time, but other companies adopted the practice on their drugs because they wanted to also appear “safe”. Nowadays we continue to have extra steps and headaches to open aspirin bottles because a once temporary solution became permanent.
While these are just two case studies, we can make a prediction that for the near term (and possibly long term) at-home jobs are going to become more prevalent. If so, it’s going to present a new set of freedoms for employees.
New At-Home Freedom Will Encourage Side Hustles and Entrepreneurship
With a new wave of employees working from home, a new wave of opportunities is presented to people who never had this freedom.
- Save time comminuting
- Save money eating from home
- Save time from idol chit-chat by coworkers stopping at your desk.
- Less time going out with coworkers since you won’t be forming those in-person bonds
- Freedom to buy toilet paper off Amazon on your personal computer and complete errands since coworkers nor bosses can look over your shoulder.
These freedoms provide extra time and autonomy to follow your own passions during your normal day. For instance, in the time it would take you to commute to work, you could instead write an article for money or upload your photography onto a stock photography website for extra cash. In between work tasks where you normally try to “look” busy at work. Instead, you could take a quick 5-minute survey to make extra money or post a Craig’s List Ad selling an old guitar for quick cash.
If you’re really ambitious, you can create your own blog to earn money on the side or create your own startup. Using your extra time at work to research and build your own ideas.
Entrepreneurship
We can’t pretend the 4 to 8 weeks the nation is shutting down isn’t going to have some heavy impacts on the economy. Many people will face some difficult realities due to the impacts of Covid-19. Some people will face cutbacks in hours, some will need to take reduced pay while others will lose their jobs. It’s another reminder that careers are not permanent.
It’s times like these when people are against the wall, their entrepreneurial drive is ignited. It typically starts small by selling candles on Etsy or jewelry on your own blog to make extra money. However, these little experiences show people invaluable skills like understanding a market, supply/demand, how to build an audience and know your audience. A skillset that can be applied to a multitude of passions leading the next wave of entrepreneurs.
This Will Be The New Normal
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
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