🖋️Feature: Access to remote work is fundamental to workforce equality

Almost losing my ability to access ANY work, changed my perspective on remote work and its influence on equality, forever

I was really oblivious to the importance and potential impact of remote work in 2015. Living in Dublin with my young family and returning to work after maternity leave, remote work was convenient. It meant I could answering a few emails from home, a nice-to-have. Little did I know that "the something I did on occasion" would become my life-line to the labour market, financial independence, support my mental health and then provide my family with a solution to the crisis that was about to unfold.

Back in 2015, with a 18 month old toddler in our home, it was a special family time, I had waited many years to become a parent and a mother. I had a bundle of joy, a treasure of a daughter, she was healthy, active and sociable. Like many new parents, I spent most of the day marvelling at her smiles, first claps, backwards crawling and the sparkle she brought to our world. I was very happy, we were happy, she was a gift from above (her name actually means that in Irish Gaelic) - she is pictured below trying to escape along a path near our home in Dublin city center.

I had two work contracts at that time, one with a University in Dublin and one with an Industry Trade Body. Both roles gave me access to physical offices and fortunately, both locations were only a 15 minute walk from our house in Dublin city center. Very convenient. Or so I thought.

During the next 24 months, that 15 minutes mini-commute became like a 15 mile walk uphill. The thought of going outside to get there, became a source of stress, in itself.
As her chronic asthma began to emerge and reveal itself, my 43 year old postpartum body ran out of reserves pretty quickly - the constant sleepless nights with her coughing, choking and disturbed sleep build up and on, to have a cumulative and amassed effect.

I was chronically exhausted and suffering from severe anxiety as her illness continued.
Medical help was sparse and although support was offered, asking someone to hold a choking small child upright for 3 hours from 3am to 6am, is something only a parent or caregiver can endure.

Suddenly, that nice-to-have occasional ability to remote work, became my way to ACCESS work and keep working, it enabled my survival in the workforce. Then, as a few months of coughing, progressed to 2 years, we began to look at options to move climate. Comments like "yes, we have 16 children in this group and 12 use inhalers for breathing" reminded us that Ireland can be a very damp place and is not good for lung and respiratory health.

So - out of desperation - we decided to explore moving to somewhere with a drier climate, we thought and could our remote work support that? I vaguely knew the term Global Mobility and yet, there we were, investigating it as we both could work remotely within Europe.

Almost, 6 years on, our base in the North of Spain, is DRY and even more DRY, actually one of the driest places we could find in Europe! She is a healthy, fit and happy child, she can breathe at night and not choke. We can sleep soundly. We have peace as a family.

Hence, why I and we can say, Remote Work really changed our family’s life for the better. I have dedicated my career and life’s work to its advocacy.

How it can change others life who may be disadvantaged either temporarily or permanently, is something I know first hand after our experience. Groups could include:

• Displaced people - many Refugees can access work and be enabled to source and find work, using remote work.

• Disabled people - finding and keeping jobs, post pandemic for disabled people is on the rise

• Caregivers of all types - similar to my stories, those who have to care for others either for short or long periods of time, can find respite in their access to work and earnings via remote work.

“Working from home — or the doctor’s office, Grandma’s house or the vet — has countless benefits for those who are caregivers of seniors or children, according to the Nov. 3 results of a survey of 1,000 employee caregivers and 500 benefits decision makers by Care.com, a digital care marketplace, and Mother Honestly, a benefits platform”

So, take a moment and consider, could you NEED remote work in the future, either due to another global crisis, change in circumstances or the illness or care needs of a loved one. I believe the majority of us will answer YES to that question and therefore need to be aware of how access to remote work for other and ourselves (at some point!) is a vital contributor to equality in our modern working society.

Stay tuned and subscribe to read the first part of our families story - coming soon, the second part, covering our life in Spain.