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The UK government is suggesting people work from home to avoid travel chaos
around the 2012 Olympics, but why hasn't teleworking already taken off, asks
Tom de Castella.
Once upon a time teleworking was the future that would free us from the yoke of
office life. Armed with phone, computer and internet connection, human
potential would blossom in the comfort of our own homes.
It makes sense. Why travel for hours a day to a central location when you can
roll out of bed and start working from your kitchen table with none of the
hassle and environmental damage that commuting entails?
Home working is certainly on the rise. A survey of firms by the Confederation
of British Industry showed that the number offering at least some teleworking
rose from 14% in 2006 to 46% in 2008. Figures later this month are expected to
show the trend continuing.
British Telecom was one of the pioneers. It began a telework scheme in 1986,
and now has 15,000 homeworkers out of 92,000 employees. The company argues that
homeworkers save it an average of 6,000 a year each, are 20% more productive
and take fewer sick days.
UK - Telework by numbers
(June - September 2010, ONS)
At HSBC 15,000 out of the bank's 35,000 staff in the UK have the ability to
work from home. But that is still less than half the workforce and figures deal
only with the means to work from home, they do not indicate full-time home
working.
But why isn't there even more working from home?
Home working doesn't suit all jobs or sectors. There are some sectors of the UK
economy where teleworking is impossible - retailers, manufacturers and City
traders are among those where most people have to be at the workplace. In
theory, call centres could allow staff to work from home. In practice, the cost
of linking secure databases to thousands of houses stands as a considerable
obstacle.
Graphic showing commuting time
It's a balance, says HSBC spokesman Mark Hemingway. "Cashiers have to be in the
branch and we need staff in call centres. But for all the admin work we do
actively organise it so that people can work from home." It may involve giving
them a laptop, remote working technology or a phone with e-mail but the rewards
for the firm are higher productivity, low absenteeism and better staff
retention, he says.
Successive governments have pressed employers to bring in more flexible
working, which can involve home working. Workers who are carers or parents
already have the right to ask their employer for flexible working, although
employers are not required to agree to it. The government plans to extend this
right to ask to all workers during this parliament, to the annoyance of some
employers.
And this week UK Transport Secretary Philip Hammond called for employees in
London to work from home during the Olympics next year. The move - intended to
ease transport congestion - was criticised by one business group.
"One would have hoped that business is the best judge of where their staff
should be," says Alexander Ehmann, head of employment at the Institute of
Directors. "It's slightly surprising to read his comments saying that staff
should stay away from London. We'd hope that the transport infrastructure is
there to allow people to get to work."
But there are some who welcome teleworking. "We should be having more flexible
working," says Cary Cooper, Professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster
University Management School. "It's not for everyone - you can't build a car at
home. But quite a lot of the UK works in the knowledge economy, and for these
workers there's no problem."
He notes there is research showing that people are more productive at home,
while technology many have - a computer, phone and broadband - allows us to
stay in touch with colleagues. There are clear benefits. You do away with long
commutes that waste time, cause pollution and raise stress levels. Homeworkers
often have more leeway to plan their lives better - picking up the children
from school or caring for elderly relatives.
The American experience
Tawny Stitely - the homeworker
Tawny Stitely, a management analyst at the Defense Information Systems Agency
in the US works from home.
"It takes me just 30 seconds to get to work.
"I have a designated area in my home that I consider my office. My company
provides a work laptop for me to work from and that's basically all I need to
do my job.
"I have an office in my family room, with a desk telephone and I always go to
that area and that's my workspace."
She still dresses up and puts her make up on to create the formality of being
in the office.
However there are potential drawbacks to working from your kitchen or study.
For one thing you're on your own. "It can get a bit lonesome at home and you
should eyeball your manager from time to time," he says. "Otherwise without
feedback you can drift and lose focus."
Prof Cooper warns that you may slip down the pecking order if you're never in
the office. Keeping a clear distinction between home and work is also tricky.
And what happens if your computer or internet fails? "If the technology goes
down then you're left exposed. Whereas in the office someone will come and fix
it."
For Prof Cooper the answer is to find a happy medium of flexible working, with
staff alternating between shifts in the office and at home.
Despite research pointing to higher output from home working, there's still a
perception from some that it amounts to skiving. When many people were forced
to work from home across the UK one snowbound day in November, the Jeremy Kyle
show was watched by an extra 200,000 viewers. Indeed some people assert they
waste as much time with none of the benefits that chatting to colleagues
offers.
"What happens when I work at home is that the first hour is productive and then
I start going to pieces," wrote Financial Times work commentator Lucy Kellaway
in a column in December. "It is as if I am governed by an internal time-wasting
law that says the amount of time wasted in any day is constant."
Indeed for many staff, home is moving to the workplace. Employees now shower
and breakfast in the office, hang clothing by their desks and have personal
post delivered there, Kellaway argues.
Home view
Zoe Williams wrote Things You Only Know If You're Not At Work for the Guardian.
Until you work in an office you don't realise how much time is spent chatting
and having fun. At home you've got all this dead energy.
I've been working at home since 2000. The hardest thing at the start was going
to bed. I used to stay up till four in the morning.
And I used to waste a lot of time smoking, consuming snacks and wandering
around the kitchen.
There's a search for meaning. Other people have colleagues, you're trying to
make a colleague of the postman.
I've been de-socialised from an office perspective. Now when I go in I can't
work out who to talk to. But there are benefits to being at home. People in
offices wouldn't believe how well you can concentrate at home.
You can get a task done in 20 minutes that would take all day in an office. You
can plan your own time and have a really nice lunch in the pub with friends or
go to Selfridges.
It goes back to that Marxist point - has the employer bought your skill or your
time? The first is empowering, the latter enslaving.
Britain is not alone in pushing for more home working. The US congress recently
passed the Telework Enhancement Act, which requires the head of every
government agency to establish telework policy for staff.
An employee who works three days a week from home can save $5,878 ( 3,775) a
year on commuting costs and spare the environment 4000 kilograms of pollutants,
according to Telework Exchange, an organisation promoting the practice.
In Britain, managerial prejudice still needs to be overcome. "Teleworking has
been seen as an employee benefit, rather than as a good move for business,"
says Shirley Borrott, director of the Telework Association. "In some cases they
think, 'how am I going to know they're working if I can't see them?'"
But Guy Bailey, a policy advisor at the CBI, says that while the trend for home
working will continue, it's unlikely to make the office obsolete. "For a large
proportion of workers, the demand will always be to work with colleagues. They
want somewhere they can bounce ideas off each other and keep things separate
from their private life."
There's another problem with working from home. You can't moan about it to the
person sitting at the next desk.
Additional reporting by Rajini Vaidyanathan