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I've heard of people telecommuting, what kinds of jobs are these? (don't just give me vague "IT jobs" answers)
IT jobs.
Most of the telecommuting jobs I know of are IT related, such as software developers, or people who manage them. Some customer service reps, some IT support. But almost all are jobs that people had on the mainland and were successful in migrating to the islands, versus jobs people found once they were already in Hawai'i.
Right, I do software development from home. Like OpenD said, you could be in management, web site design or whatever, the key is you work over the Internet and over the phone.
I've heard of people telecommuting, what kinds of jobs are these? (don't just give me vague "IT jobs" answers)
Seriously, almost everything, soup to nuts. Just to take the popular example of web stuff since it's something a lot of people are familiar with...you can hire out to an agency to get branding and logos and a user experience designed. Then you can pay someone remote to colocate your servers, both for the data on the back end and the varnish on the front end. You don't have to administrate those servers if you don't want to hire a support staff, you can hire experts to do both the application management and the lower level operating system stuff. Backups and archival can be taken care of remotely as part of the hosting plan, and all your logs can be shipped out to a data analysis and visualization firm. You can even implement a content management system that will allow your lower-skilled in-house people to perform routine content updates without messing with anything deep down if that's your preference.
All you really need to do in house is the decision making and the "business" stuff like getting your products made, and of course, if they're physical in nature you're probably only prototyping yourself and getting the manufacturing done overseas.
The kinds of folks I just mentioned can be living anywhere in the world, working over the Internet, and typically working on many different clients' projects and systems at once. It's been like this for quite some time now, I always find it shocking when people think that every company has an IT staff sitting inside their own building someplace. Honestly? The only people you need in-house or close by are the barely-skilled grunts who crawl under your desk and plug your stuff in and fix minor user errors.
I always find it shocking when people think that every company has an IT staff sitting inside their own building someplace. Honestly? The only people you need in-house or close by are the barely-skilled grunts who crawl under your desk and plug your stuff in and fix minor user errors.
Is there a specific business size you are equating this opinion to?
Is there a specific business size you are equating this opinion to?
I've worked with shops that had 10,000+ employees that were able to source out their entire operations floors and have folks like IBM come in to run their data centers, and I've worked with small businesses that have 100% of their infrastructure located in another state run by people they've never even met face to face. It's extremely common. Two things I think a lot of folks don't "get" about twenty-first century IT is that it's more likely something is sourced out than run in house and it's more likely any employee doing anything in tech is a contractor than a full time hire.
I think the public has this idea in their heads of the inside of Google and Facebook offices they've seen on television, and that's as much like "any other business" as a look inside Wonka Chocolate is like "any other factory."
I'm not saying nobody runs in house IT departments soup to nuts anymore, some do...but it's not common and it's definitely no longer the norm. Of the IT jobs available anywhere in the USA at any given time today, a very small minority even resemble that model.
I have seen both sides of that coin for 40-200 user size businesses. I've bounced from in-house do-it-all IT Manager to Managed Service Provider Engineer and back for the past 15 years or so. My experience has been that outsourcing works for some, but some shops prefer an in-house person that knows their systems inside and out. You are right though, the traditional in house IT Manager that is responsible for everything is not very common anymore.
I've heard of people telecommuting, what kinds of jobs are these? (don't just give me vague "IT jobs" answers)
I work for a large global consulting firm in which telecommuting is very common. If your job involves working at a computer and/or talking on the phone all day, then you can work pretty much anywhere you want to in your country of residence, as long as you attend required teleconferences and such. I write and edit various materials, manage a SharePoint intranet site, and work on proposals for new business (i.e., I sit at a computer all day), and my boss tells me that there's no reason I couldn't telecommute from Hawaii (as long as she's allowed to come visit, of course ). Unfortunately, my wife's job isn't portable, but when she retires in a few years, there's a good chance we'll make the move – assuming I'm still working at a job from which I can telecommute. I'll have the benefit of a good Mainland salary, and since my company has an office in Hawaii, I'll also have access to several health-insurance options there. We'll assess the situation when the time comes, but I definitely plan to stay on a "telecommutable" career path.
I live in Virginia, but the servers that host our software are in California. My team is in four counties and on two continents. I am 500 miles from my coworkers in the US. When our last kid graduates high school we are free to move where we want.
Private-sector managers and employees told PBN they grudgingly accept Hawaii’s lower wages as the historical norm and the so-called “price of paradise.”
“That was the norm with either board members or major investors, they were dead set against paying [higher wages],” said David Watumull, president and CEO of Cardax Pharmaceuticals, which is based in Aiea. “Simply put, they’d say, we don’t do that in Hawaii. I think there’s still a lot of that and the justification of why it should be less, like because we [companies] pay higher taxes.”
It’s also been blamed for the “brain drain,” where Hawaii-born college graduates leave for higher paying careers on the Mainland or abroad.
“It’s a societal problem, not an industry problem,” said Pono Shim, president and CEO of Enterprise Honolulu. “We’ve got it backwards where we’re importing expertise and exporting revenue. Until we really start getting better at exporting our expertise, as a community, we’re paying for it dearly in the brain drain.”
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). Unfortunately, my wife's job isn't portable, but when she retires in a few years, there's a good chance we'll make the move – assuming I'm still working at a job from which I can telecommute. I'll have the benefit of a good Mainland salary, and since my company has an office in Hawaii, I'll also have access to several health-insurance options there. We'll assess the situation when the time comes, but I definitely plan to stay on a "telecommutable" career path.
