By Myrlysa Kharkongor | SHILLONG:
In this economy, remote jobs have been highly coveted by those who have been laid off or by anyone looking to supplement their income. These jobs are offered by the world’s largest companies as micro jobs, to be taken up by any individual, at any time and from any place in the world.
It is almost as easy as it sounds. Most freelance gigs require prospective candidates to simply sign up, fill in the required data, and get tasking.
To understand how this process works, Yangla S, Pooja N, Abhishek S and J Priyanka Boda, who have regular 9-to-5 jobs and supplement their income through freelance work, share their experiences.
Each website that caters to freelancers is unique and offers different tasks. These tasks have their own lengthy guidelines, including tutorials on the payment methods. The sign-up process itself is more or less the same across platforms – through email or mobile phone number.
Some of these taskers work during their day, while their children are at school, or after they return home from work, while others take up tasks during their daily commute. Lately, college students and recent graduates too have started joining these freelancing platforms; however, access to these platforms remains the privilege of those who have good Internet connectivity, preferably a wireless broadband service.
Yangla tells us that she began working because she wanted to make some extra money in the time away from her regular 9–5 job. She notes that it was initially difficult to maintain work–life balance, and the transition into spending more time working needs some getting used to. Now, however, her day feels incomplete without working on an extra task or two while she’s at home. “These freelance jobs have given me both financial security and freedom,” she says.
When asked about the freelance market in India, Yangla states that “The freelance market in India is growing at a very rapid pace, and every 2 out of 10 people freelance on the side to make ends meet”.
“Because there are so many people now joining this remote workforce, there are very few regulations and there have been times when clients take advantage and do not pay on time”, she cautions. It is, in fact, not unusual to face delays in payment, which makes going fully into freelancing a risky proposition.
“The pandemic, I believe, was a big push for people to start joining these freelancing sites. Before it, many Indians wanted to only break the monotonous 9–5 or 9–6 work-hour shifts. There are so many ways for people to easily make some extra money today. I just hope they are wise enough to not fall prey to clients who are likely to take advantage of them”, she added.
Pooja says she prefers working on Amazon’s mturk, where the website offers “a variety of human intelligence tasks that include surveys, checking follower count on Instagram, providing descriptions for images or products, among others”. She says their payments can be much higher for each completed task than what is offered by competitors such as Datamime, Oneforma, or Appen.
For Abhishek N, Oneforma is the website he prefers to use because its webpage is user-friendly and easier to navigate. He says, “Their tasks are easier to take up because I enjoy taking photographs and they offer such works. They also offer voice collection tasks, which are much simpler to take up after a long day at the office”.
“I only began working for these platforms during the start of the pandemic, after I’d lost my job. It was not easy to work on these platforms as each task had a different guideline, and some tasks are rather difficult to qualify for. However, the more I read through and practised on their training mods, the more I understood the tasks and was able to make a decent amount of money monthly. Now that I have a full-time job, I still make time to work on these freelancing platforms because I’m an insomniac and it has kept me busy at night”, says Abhishek.
Datamime is J Priyanka Boda’s website of choice. She says, “They offer webinars to help their users qualify in the tasks and meet the quality standards. They also have a support team that you can write to, at any time of the day or night for assistance with completing a task”.
She also mentioned that they offer tasks related to Internet research, labelling, and transcription which she normally takes up. “The payment process is easy, as it’s an Indian-based company, and there is no delay in pay-outs”.
“It was difficult, initially, to balance my work life with the time I spend on freelancing platforms, but I’ve slowly learnt to navigate and make time for both, and have time for a social life as well. Thanks to these platforms, I am now able to aid my family financially, and save the surplus for a rainy day”, says Boda.
As family and financial responsibilities increase, flexibility is a major requirement of work for which freelance jobs are exceptionally placed. These jobs are no more the suspicious offers by disreputable businesses but now exist on formal and trustworthy platforms, often being offered by large multinationals themselves. Will these jobs appeal to more people in Shillong?