Remote work - Freelance - Work from home: Are you sure you can tell the difference?

November 28, 2021

Since the world was affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, social distancing has made work from home or remote work a must for most businesses. Employees gradually shift in working styles and are looking for more flexible and diversified forms of work. The word remote work is winning at this point.

Do you understand the similarities and differences of the three forms: Remote Work - Freelance - Work From Home? Let's find out more!

Freelance

“Freelance” means employees do not work permanently for a particular company but can work for many other firms, organizations, or individuals on separate agreements.

Usually, it is a service agreement. With this form, you can be free, both in terms of time, place, and working style depending on the agreement between the two parties, mainly based on your work result. Because there are not many constraints on labor discipline, you can be 100% proactive in time and work.

In addition to the advantages of flexibility, freedom, those who choose to be freelancers also face the problem of unstable income, not enjoying insurance policies, and financial risks if their partners violate the cooperation agreement. Since most work agreements are personal agreements, there is no protection under labor law. Not many freelancers know the terms of the law for service contracts, thereby leading to their disadvantages.

Work from home

Many people think that working from home is synonymous with freelance, but it's not. This type of work means you are an employee of a fixed business, which allows employees to work from home under certain circumstances, and needs to work in the office most of the time.

In this case, you still have full benefits under the employment contract, only with the difference of the workplace. So, work from home is just a word used to distinguish where you work, home, or office.

Before COVID-19, there are still quite a few businesses that allow work from home mode, allowing employees to work from home in some cases. Specifically, Bosch allows employees in the same department to work from home alternately during the month. Or Google allows working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Remote work

Remote work officially became more popular since the outbreak of COVID-19 when all firms have to switch from traditional work to work from home or remote work to maintain a normal business operation. Remote work means working remotely. It is a common form of work in the US and Europe for 20 years ago. In Asia, remote working is still unfamiliar to the majority.

Most people think remote work is similar to freelance. Actually, it covers both freelance and work from home. It allows you to choose a working location freely. You can work at home, or co-working space, or a coffee shop, etc. You can work full-time for a permanent business and enjoy the welfare policy, have a labor contract, according to the labor law of that country. Or you can also work part-time or as a freelancer for many different firms with different service agreements or labor agreements, depending on the case.

Thus, you can understand that remote work is a working form that employees can do anywhere, without geographic constraints. About working time, each business will have different requirements. Some allow the employee to be 100% flexible about the time, or require a fixed time frame, or a fixed number of working hours and flexible remaining time.

The vast majority of businesses that employ remote work personnel today are companies from Europe, America or have transactions with foreign partners. Therefore, the first condition is you need to be good at English. If you have a second or third foreign language, you will have a greater advantage.

In addition, the general salary level of remote workers is higher than the average salary at home. International working culture, diversity, and cultural interference between personnel from many countries also help create a big attraction for remote work.

Because of the above advantages, more and more people learn, try, and successfully become "international workers" through remote work.

The future of work

With the rapid development of information technology in recent years, remote work is a great choice for many people. For youngsters who love the freedom, flexibility, and find a work-life balance or married people who need the flexibility to arrange their time actively, remote work is the optimal solution.

Just a laptop with the internet connection, you can work from anywhere. With employees, personal problems are solved. For businesses, the remote-working form will be the solution to financial difficulties, resource optimization, and risk reduction due to natural disasters, epidemics, etc. So we can say that "remote work is the future of work."

Waw Asia is proud to be a pioneer enterprise that brings a popular remote-working culture to Asia. In the Asian market, Waw Asia is also the first official job portal exclusively for people living in Asia time zones. Job seekers can connect directly to employers without a go-between. The job description posted on Waw Asia has been moderated to ensure that the employers are prestigious and the benefits of the employees are protected.