Companies are hiring hundreds to work at home in Fort Worth, and not just temporarily
The coronavirus crisis has elevated the stay-at-home job — once a domain of high-pressure sales calls, and envelope-stuffing scams — to a more prestigious place.
Google hangouts and Zoom encounters with co-workers are now a common part of American workplace culture.
And, although for many people working from home is a temporary arrangement, others may be drawn to the idea of working from home permanently. For those workers with a home office, a growing number of full-time job opportunities is becoming available.
“We tend to see more efficiency and higher retention from our work-at-home population than we do from our brick and mortar, stand-alone facilities,” Dave Palmer, president of Singapore-based Everise, said in a phone interview.
Everise aims to hire at least 300 people from the Fort Worth area in the coming weeks, Palmer said. The jobs are 100% home-based, and involve fielding calls from customers of insurance companies, including callers who need information about their Medicare coverage.
Palmer, who is based in Arizona, said the company is recruiting from the Dallas-Fort Worth area because its demographics show a large number of North Texans already have state insurance licenses, which are required for the job openings.
Company officials didn’t disclose salaries but, a glance at job posting websites such as Glassdoor indicates the jobs typically pay $17 to $20 an hour plus benefits.
Overall, Everise employs more than 5,000 employees in the United States, including many who have never met in the same room with their supervisors nor their workplace colleagues. Even the initial visit to the human resources department, and the obligatory exchange of tax identification forms can be done online, Palmer said.
The company hopes to hire as many as 4,000 more employees in the coming months, he said.
Everise also operates more traditional call centers in Austin and McGregor, Texas (near Waco), Tahlequah, Okla., and other places in the United States, although many of those offices have been mostly closed during the COVID-19 crisis. Many of those employees are now temporarily working from home.
But, Palmer said, about 20% of the company’s work force is permanently stationed at home.
National trend
Some companies have allowed their employees to work from home for years. Fort Worth-based American Airlines, for example, has hundreds of reservation agents who interact with travelers over the phone from their home offices.
Nationwide, about 7.3 percent of the work force has a full-time job based at their home — 9.4 million out of 128.2 million workers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That percentage, which is based on periodic updates from the American Community Survey, could increase after the 2020 Census is complete.
Another 4 million Americans work at home part of the time, the Census data shows.
The number of full-time, work-at-home employees has jumped 69% since 1997.
Do your homework
The work-at-home industry hasn’t always enjoyed a good reputation.
The Federal Trade Commission has posted guidelines to help job-seekers determine if a home-based job is too good to be true.
“When money’s tight, a work-at-home opportunity might sound like just the thing to make ends meet,” the FTC said on its website. “Some even promise a refund if you don’t succeed. But the reality is many of these jobs are scams. You end up paying for starter kits or certifications that are useless, find your credit card is charged without your permission, or get caught up in a fake check scam.”
The FTC recommends that job candidates check with their local Better Business Bureau, the state attorney general’s office or other consumer protection agencies to find out as much as possible about a company. Also, the FTC says to be wary of companies offering jobs for rebate processing, medical billing and mystery shopping.
Palmer said the sentiment about whether stay-at-home jobs are a scam is changing, as prospective employees find it easy to do their own online research to find out about a company’s salaries, working conditions and other elements of its reputation.
“Most prospective employees will do a little homework,” he said, adding that about 40% of applicants are referred to the company by current employees. “I’m proud to say we have some of the highest scores in the industries.”
Ready when COVID-19 hit
Julie Gieger soon will celebrate her fifth anniversary working from home for DVM Elite, a company that assists veterinarians in the U.S. and Canada with publicity and marketing.
Years ago, she figured out how to draw boundaries between work and family time. She lives in Frisco with her husband and two teenage sons, and works five days a week from a home office.
Geiger communicates with clients by telephone and video conference. Those systems and protocols were in place long before coronavirus shut down much of the economy.
“With the recent remarkable shift in where people are working from,” Geiger said, “my teammates and I were ahead of the game when COVID-19 hit.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
