With excellent salaries and career prospects, Canada has become a hot spot for remote working. Here are practical tips on how to make it work for you.

Whether it’s more flexibility or finally saying goodbye to the morning commute, more and more workers are demanding remote work options worldwide.

Canada has positioned itself as a remote work haven to meet this vast demand and attract the top tier of talent. Developing infrastructure and government initiatives have helped speed along this transition tremendously.

So, if you’re considering working remotely in Canada, this article will guide you through everything you need to know. It will explain why Canada has become a trendsetter and offer simple but effective tips to maximize your success.

Why are more Canadians working remotely?

There are many reasons why remote working makes sense in Canada, both for employers and employees.

Firstly, it has enormous government support. The recent ‘Digital Nomad’ program allows overseas workers to work in Canada for up to six months without a work permit. This alone has utterly transformed the Canadian jobs market, where businesses can attract top talent regardless of location, and workers can contribute to Canadian businesses without needing to relocate immediately.

Canadians are themselves very open to remote work, too. Research from consulting firm Robert Half has found that up to 85% of workers have shown interest in both hybrid and remote positions. In their snapshot of the jobs market, they found the rate of remote jobs in Canada for October reached 37.5%.

As well as attracting jobs in Canada, remote working has allowed Canadians to apply for higher-paid salaries in other countries, such as the US or Europe. So long as workers continue to pay their respective income tax, remote working allows Canadians to improve their income and not be penalized for working at home.

Four tips on remote working in Canada

Despite their popularity, remote work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—at least at the start. You need to keep some important things in mind to ensure your safety. These include:

1. Educate yourself against phishing attacks and job scams

To work remotely in Canada, you must learn about the rising threats online, including phishing and recruitment scams.

Phishing is when a hacker pretends to be someone they aren’t, like a trusted person or a service. They aim to build trust with you quickly and trick you into doing something out of character, like sharing sensitive information or downloading malicious files.

Because of the growing popularity of remote working, hackers often run fake recruitment scams to trick remote workers on networking sites.

When job-hunting, remember to:

• Examine the company’s website. Does it reflect the job being advertised? Do they have a good reputation in the industry?

• Be wary of jobs with low barriers for entry—ones that don’t ask for interviews or references and may seem ‘too good to be true.’

• Avoid downloading any files or clicking links from unknown senders when applying.

• Hide private information like your date of birth, address, and contact emails from your public profile.

• Never send money to a recruiter for ‘processing’ or ‘VISA’ fees.

• Before accepting a connection or engaging in conversation, examine the recruiter’s profile thoroughly, including the quality of information and how long they’ve been working with the company.

2. Use a virtual private network (VPN)

A VPN is an essential cybersecurity tool for working from home and using the internet in general. It encrypts your internet connection, making it impossible for hackers to know what you’re doing online.

But a VPN has an additional benefit for remote workers—a dedicated IP address. This is when a VPN assigns your computer a unique IP address that identifies it from every other device.

A business can approve your IP address, allowing you (and only you) access to anything you might need for your work. This ensures you can perform all your duties at home without leaving your business vulnerable.

And because a VPN can protect you on any network, including public Wi-Fi hotspots, you’ll be allowed to work from anywhere in Canada, at home, the airport, a café, or more—with total peace of mind!

3. Update all of your technology

Hackers devise new attacks that exploit old technology in our homes and workplaces daily. And although developers might have released security patches to help defend against cyberattacks, these are meaningless unless downloaded and installed.

Research from 2021 found that 61% of security vulnerabilities found on corporate networks dated back to 2016—or even older. These vulnerabilities resulted in ransomware attacks, as well as password theft.

To counteract this, you must ensure all of your technology at home is regularly updated. Where possible, enable automatic installation of updates. Remember to update all your devices, including your PC, software, and smartphone, as well as any accessories like your router, webcam, microphone drivers, and more.

4. Study the company incident response plan thoroughly

If you’ve got a remote job in Canada and are looking at ways to prepare yourself, you should ask to see and study the company’s incident response plan.

This important document will help explain what you should do before, during, and after a suspected cyberattack. In particular, find out the following:

• How often is the plan updated? How often are staff retrained?

• How do you report an issue, and to whom?

• What should staff say to outside personnel during a potential breach?

By being aware of how your business treats cyberattacks, you can understand your role better, be proactive, and respond quickly and effectively. This will not only help contain the threat but also help mitigate potential damage while working remotely.