By the time you read this blog, it’s likely that you will have had a discussion with someone somewhere about your work set-up, your organization’s remote work policy changes, or changing your working lifestyle all together.

Whether you are a remote team member, freelancer, solopreneur, or entrepreneur, each lifestyle comes with its own set of responsibilities, opportunities, and challenges. This blog will discuss some initial reflections that you might consider having as you design your desired distributed work lifestyle in a pandemic-seasoned world.

Key points discussed in this blog

1. How do I decide what’s right for me?
2. How are my  values reflected in the distributed work lifestyle?
3. What are the responsibilities, opportunities, and challenges of this lifestyle?
4. A note on Asia
5. What’s next?

How to decide what’s right for me?

What is right for you  is based on the culture you’re coming from; the culture you want to be in; and the values that you want to practice. When I say culture, I’m talking about the sum of all the contexts in which you currently exist: work, home, geographic location, and family.I invite you to consider your working lifestyle in the context of your professional, home, and family cultures with the following questions:

1. What challenged me as a working person in the last 2 years?
2. Where did I see inspiration as a working person in the last 2 years?
3. What blocks are there preventing me from changing the way I currently work?
4. What small steps can I take this month to create opportunities to change my professional pathways?

Now that you have initial reflections to the questions above, take time to explore  the matches or misalignments between your reflections  and the characterizations of the remote work lifestyles described below.

Below, I have included a summary definition of the four different remote work lifestyles for your consideration. Each one contains a definition of the title, some key responsibilities of holding this lifestyle, the key opportunity of holding this lifestyle, and some of the main challenges you’ll encounter in bearing those responsibilities and opportunities.

Remote Team Member

• Definition: An individual who has a regular contract (temporary or permanent) with an organization, and works primarily with this single organization. They are offered some or all of the benefits of being a team member of the organization.
• Responsibilities:
• To complete your contractual obligations to your employer.
• To ensure your personal income tax compliances globally.
• Opportunity: You will be able to explore new places and cultures while maintaining a regular salary, benefits, tax, and organizational support.
• Challenges: You will need to negotiate the conditions of your remote work lifestyle, including location, working hours, contract type, taxation, salary, benefits, and more depending on your organization’s policies.

Remote Freelancer

• Definition: An individual who has one or more contracts to provide services to one or more organizations. Payment is delivered directly into a personal, non-business, bank account, and they are not typically offered benefits of being a team member of the organization. The individual may hire additional subcontractors to deliver the scope of work, but there are no team members on payroll or regular contracts.
• Responsibilities:
• To complete your contractual obligations to your clients and subcontractors.
• To comply with your personal income tax requirements globally.
• Opportunity: You will be able to have full autonomy on your time spent in your personal and professional life.
• Challenges: You will need to market your skills, leverage your networks, and manage your time without the support of a team or organizational administrative support.

Remote Solopreneur

• Definition: An individual who has one or more contracts to provide services to one or more organizations. Payment is delivered into a business bank account with a business registration connected to it. The individual may hire additional subcontractors to deliver the scope of work, but there are no team members on payroll or regular contracts. There is no immediate intention to develop an organization beyond the individual business owner.
• Responsibilities:
• To complete your contractual obligations to your clients and subcontractors.
• To comply with your personal income tax requirements globally.
• To comply with your business VAT and corporate income tax requirements globally.
• Opportunity: You will be able to have full autonomy on your time spent in your personal and professional life, while being able to leverage tax advantages of owning your own business and professional liability protections of having a legal entity separate from your individual self.
• Challenges: You will need to navigate the incorporation and maintenance of a legal business entity, and ensure tax compliance for yourself and your legal business entity.

Remote Entrepreneur

• Definition: An individual who has one or more contracts to provide services to one or more organizations. Payment is delivered into a business bank account with a business registration connected to it. The individual may have one or more business partners, will have team members on regular contracts, and may have additional subcontractors. The intention is to build a legal entity beyond the individual founders.
• Responsibilities:
• To complete your contractual obligations to your clients, subcontractors, and team members.
• To comply with your personal income tax requirements globally.
• To comply with your business VAT and corporate income tax requirements globally.
• To comply with your business’ social security contribution requirements in all locations where you are registered as a business and have regular employees.
• To support your team and grow the organization and its impact by whatever metrics you choose that will sustain your business and the livelihoods that it supports
• Opportunity: You will be able to create and lead an entity that has the potential for much greater impact beyond yourself and the individual people who work for the organization while creating work and opportunities for job seekers.
• Challenges: You will need to create a revenue structure for the organization that can sustain regular expenses every month including payroll and software, and ensure tax and regulatory compliance globally.

A note on Asia

The descriptions above stem from our experience working in Asia, and may be mixed up or labeled differently depending on your context.

Similarly, our upcoming toolkit is informed by our experiences at InsightPact. While our work is global, we are headquartered in Bangkok and have team members, including founders, based in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The toolkit is applicable  anywhere in the world, but some considerations are specific to different countries in Asia, especially when talking about how and where to incorporate if you want to be a solopreneur or entrepreneur. I’m looking forward to this being the start of a larger conversation about distributed work lifestyles wherever you are in the world.

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