Embrace Home Loans reports that it is actively recruiting home-based or virtual underwriters to support increased demand for home financing.
One of the key advantages of using virtual workers is that it eliminates the geographical and logistical issues that can be a hindrance to recruiting and hiring top talent. By allowing underwriters to work from their homes, Embrace Home Loans can significantly widen its geographical hiring area. What's more, it can save on operating costs, as it will not have to lease additional office space for these new underwriters.
In addition, home-based jobs are known to drive employee satisfaction. For example, Michelle Baker, who previously worked from the lender's Maitland, Fla., office, driving 25 miles each way to work, now works for the company from her home in Ocoee, Fla.
‘Not only has it saved me fuel and the wear and tear on my vehicle, I love not having to commute,’ Baker says in a release. ‘I find I am actually more productive working from home,’ Baker said. In addition, Baker said she was pleased with the training and ongoing support received.
What's more, recent research shows that retention rates among home-based agents is much higher when compared to turnover rates for traditional ‘brick and mortar’ facilities.
Kurt Noyce, president of Embrace Home Loans, says the response from employees since the company launched the program ‘has been encouraging.’
‘We remain committed to helping families across the nation, and we are thrilled to offer this opportunity to the industry's best and brightest credit professionals across the country,’ Noyce says.
In addition to widening the geographic reach of its recruiting efforts, Embrace Home Loans can now recruit and hire the very best underwriters it can find, regardless of location. Some of these talented underwriters could be retirees, homemakers, veterans and the disabled.
The virtual underwriter model brings other advantages, as well. For example, it offers improved business continuity and redundancy; should the power get knocked out at the main headquarters, or the company network goes down, Web-based systems means these underwriters could, in theory, continue working, as they would have access to all the same applications and functionality. In fact, the development of Web-based systems is what has given rise to these new remote worker models.
Embrace's press release doesn't say whether it is seeking full-time salaried employees or if these are non-exempt, hourly or part-time positions. For more, click here.