I am not very politically minded, but one thing that annoys me is the traffic congestion on the roads, and no-one has come up with the simple answer – WORK FROM HOME. Luckily I work from home and rarely have to battle the rush hour traffic, but I am amazed when I do. Its only 3 years since I went freelance but the traffic has still increased in that time. With that traffic also comes pollution.
How many jobs really require an employee to travel everyday to its place of business? I am sure most people could do most of their work from home and maybe travel to an office once or twice a week. Certainly in the creative industry, and general office work the majority of jobs could be done from home. Broadband for uploading and downloading files from a central server, webcams for conferencing, phone calls diverted to home phones.
Surely it would benefit companies too, they would require less office space. I know Employers may be concerned that employees may not be working, but who’s to say they are in the office with so many distractions – colleagues, mobile phones, the internet. If work could be measured by productivity rather than hours attending an office, this could be the answer. For employees, there would be less travelling, less childcare costs, more of working hours to suit you. As long as the job gets done, does it really matter if its done 9am-5pm or 6pm – 2am?
Shouldn’t there really be more incentives for employers to set employees up working from home?
(sorry about the rant, I’m finished now 
)
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13 Comments
It’s worth remembering that not everyone has the drive and self discipline required to work effectively from home. It takes more than simply having the technology in place.
People might prefer to have a place of work for a number of reasons – for the less driven, it helps them to shift into a ‘work mode’ where they can feel focussed on what they do and for those who are more self reliant, there is simply the benefit of leaving the stresses and strains of work at the office when you come home which can be good for the soul if your job is hectic.
The other issue is that people have become much more used to the notion that they are entitled to live where they want and, at the same time, work where they want. This, combined with the centralisation of business activity in town & city centres plus the distorting effects of house price inflation, means that the need for travel increases greatly. Add to this sense of entitlement, a certain “can’t wait, won’t wait” attitude toward public transport and you land right in traffic jam hell.
I believe that future planning should always allow for a distribution of residential and business property that reduces people’s need to travel thus improving both quality of life and our nation’s green credentials. Trouble is, it’s mighty hard to retrofit this approach to existing communities.
I too have finished my rant! Hope I’ve not drifted too far off topic lol!
Hi Matt,
You raise some good points and I do agree working from home is not necessarily for everyone, but it should in my opinion be made more of an option. To me it is a better alternative to charging people to travel on roads, which may work short term, but probably not long term (with more and more cars on the roads every day).
The idea of mixing up residential and business areas more is an interesting idea too.
As someone who is currently doing a mix of work at home and in a separate workplace, I have a reasonable balance.
Working from home means I can get started as early as I want to and I can step away easily if there’s something that needs to be done outside of my work zone. I save money by eating lunch at home. But the temptation to just sneak back out of work hours and do a little bit more during my family time is a constant.
Tara, even when I work from home, my son goes to childcare, because when he’s at home he wants my time and attention and I want to give it to him. In that situation it’s impossible to focus on a design brief.
Working away from home means getting to see and talk to other people, see what they’re up to and get feedback from them about what I’m doing. I don’t bring work home with me. And although I live about 25 minutes’ walk from my workplace, I do drive in because I need to be able to pick up my son from childcare after work. So parking and fuel are additional expenses.
I’m all for less pollution, less vehicles on the road, so can empathise with your thoughts.
There’s a green lane throughout Edinburgh’s streets, where only public transport can pass. I think it has helped people realise that when they do use the roads that it’s faster to go public.
Tara
Yeah, I do think you’re right – there are certainly a lot of people (and not just in the creative industry) who could easily work from home but aren’t given the option.
David
Edinburgh is a particularly bad case as it’s really not meant to handle the traffic that it does. I don’t think of it as a city so much as a town that took steroids! I love living here but I can’t imagine having to get around by car every day – must be a nightmare!
Traffic has become a Major issue in my country India,. Especially in Bangalore which is a home for 3000+ IT companies. We are lucky that The city has been WiMAX(ed).. Few companies like IMB, Accenture, INFOSYS pay an incentive to work from home.. But i still feel working from home equals less contacts and less socializing, more of isolation, more of depression. Freedom to smoke, and junk foods would show adverse health effects..atleast no company allows to smoke in work place.
I still feel working outside in an office is better. Unless you got your garage, or a different room outside your house, and stick to your rules.
I work from home and have for over 10 years. It feels good to know I’m not contributing to the air pollution and dealing with daily idiot drivers. Its peaceful being able to work from home and honestly I think I have a bit of ADD so I get more accomplished now than I did when I was a GM of a major cellular company and worked at a local office. If companies just took the risk on some employee’s to set them up at home I think they’d find many would settle in and be more productive.
Everyone’s got an opinion as to whether they prefer working at home or in an office if they had the choice – personally I’d prefer home. But to answer Tara’s question: “How many jobs really require an employee to travel everyday to its place of business?” 10% of service sector jobs?
My point is that the technology will force people to work more flexibly location-wise. And I wouldn’t know if that’s good or bad. But it’s why I’ll be working as much from home as I can.
I wanted to respond to this posting because even though you termed your comment a ‘rant,’ I think you bring up a number of big issues that many of us are thinking about – especially when we’re sitting in traffic. What is the opportunity cost of that time? How much carbon is being emitted as you sit at yet another stoplight?
While it is completely valid to argue that an office space has the psychic effect of switching people in to ‘work mode,’ as was mentioned, and self motivation and time management are critical skills; I truly think the benefits of an alternative business model, one where employees are trusted to complete their work off site, far outweigh the costs in terms of lost time and money. It’s all just resource inefficiency.
In my organization, we all work off site, in fact we all live in different time zones. We are fortunate to have found a fantastic web based, time management program which allows us to communicate about each task, track the time we spend on each task, pass versions of each document back and forth, and submit time sheets at the end of each week. It’s like a virtual office that has allowed us to make this alternative business model work without the worry of time inefficiency – because it’s all tracked. I suppose I have to add that environmental considerations have been a big factor in our firm and that won’t be true everywhere. Yet, I do think that your ‘rant’ points out that there are clearly a lot of people who could be more productive outside of their cars than trapped inside them and they can be trusted given the right tools to manage their time. If you’re interested, our program is called Intervals (www.myintervals.com) and they have a fantastic team to help introduce you to the program.
Thanks for your post!
I live 2 miles from my work place , and CYCLE , 1 step further . If everyone did this there would be a congestion of bikes! I don’t understand the commuting concept – why live 20 miles away from where you work – it seems not only a waste of time but it helps destroy the planet. I realise some house prices in inner cities may be too expensive – fair enough but a large number of commuters don’t work in cities these days atleast in the UK.
Hi,
This has been a very interesting debate and as someone who has been working from home for the past five years, it’s something that means a lot to me.
The point was raised that it’s not for everyone, that some people need the regimentation of an office environment. This is absolutely true: in my business – which is marketing a streaming media product called helloWorld, by the way – we find that at least 80% of the people who come along and say they want to ‘break out of the rat-race’ and work from home don’t actually do anything.
Temptation at home is one of the biggest factors that prevents some from working to their full potential: the TV, what’s on the radio, what’s in the fridge, the garden, the shops… the list could go on.
But that aside, working from home, especially for yourself, can be rewarding and fulfilling. Time that is otherwise wasted can be better utilised, and those unnecessary meetings and ‘time filling’ exercises can be ditched – how many times have you seen office managers keeping people behind after the job’s completed because it wasn’t the end of the working day? Or that you’ve had to go to a meeting solely to discuss the agenda for the next meeting?
Working from home gives you freedom to utilise your time better, plus it’s better for the environment
Steve
Good post…I have just started to work from home this yea, I do have to attend meeting in the month, and training from time to time..It has been an ajustment..and I was not sure if it was for me till last week I had to go to Johannesburg..Three hours it took to get from airport to office..they are doing all the highways for 2010..then I realized how lucky I was..and it is better for the environment…to have less car’s on the road..Ops!and the stress…Guys..Thanks
I trap in traffic for more than 10 years and now I’m realize it take a lot of my time in this life and drive me insane everyday. This article remind me to get out this condition as soon as possible and now I’m trying to find a way for work from home.I wish find great ideas in here