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The very term
“home workers” conjures up an
image of the stay at home mum
doing telesales whilst ironing
and looking after the kids, or
the wannabe millionaire setting
up his own business in the
living room. This simply is no
longer the case.
More and more executives and
companies alike are seeing the
benefits of cutting overheads
and traffic pollution, while
giving their employees a chance
to change their “life-work
balance” to create a more
productive and healthier
workforce. The UK Census 2001
showed that 27.8 million people
were working full or part time
from home. The image of your
home being taken over by
paperwork from the office and
never being able to ignore the
phone just in case it's
important is long gone too.
More people making the best use
of their home for work and
pleasure, by investing in a
garden office or a home office
in a garden building. This
effectively creates a home /
office divide, separating the
dedicated phone and computer
necessary for work from the day
to day living of home and family
life.
The "Time to
go home – embracing the home
working revolution" report
from Work Foundation by Tim
Dwelly and Yvonne Bennion,
written in 2003, states “After
years of speculation, a clear
trend towards home working in
the UK has emerged in Labour
Force Survey figures. Over 2
million people work at home with
telephone and computers for a
least a day a week – a figure
that has grown by an average of
13 percentage points a year
since 1997. Growth is highest
amongst employees, who now out
number the self employed.” A
clear indication then that
working from home is not a fad
but a trend that is growing
yearly at a huge rate.
The Department
for Education and Employment (DFEE)
report "Work-Life Balance",
written in 2000, states that
approximately 20% of those
employed work from home
occasionally, that 35% of
managers work from home
occasionally and that 80% of all
home workers are in fact the
managerial staff. It also found
that 1/3 of those not working
from home have said that they
would like to.
The “revolution”
for home working is unique in
the fact that it has been almost
entirely instigated by the
workers. They want to remove
themselves from the office and
work from their own home, even
if only part time, and become
free of the rat race that has
become our working life. Imagine
if you can what would be more
productive, a hustle bustle rush
to get in to work through peak
hour traffic into an office
crammed full of people, or
getting up and having breakfast
before a stroll down your garden
to your own office where
everything is as you left it and
your house is in easy reach.
It’s not hard to see the plus
points. With advances in
technology and security every
day, even if the paperless
office never happens, the home
or garden office has become a
real and tangible thing that
many aspire to have.
Of course it’s
not all roses around the door,
home working comes with its cons
as well as its pros. "The
Quality of home experience for
home workers" report by Dr
Jeanne Moore and Tracey Crosbie
for the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC) in April
2003, a study which explored the
ways in which working from home
shapes home and family life for
different groups of home
workers, found “Home working
itself does not necessarily
disrupt home and family life,
but is shaped by personal,
social and physical factors. In
this way, some home workers
found that working from home
enhanced home, while others
found that it created spatial
tensions”. Clearly when
considering working from your
own home, space is always going
to be an issue. However, with
the types of secure garden
offices now available, the
practical solution must lend
itself to this.
With space being at a premium
within the home for family life,
many may consider a conservatory
or even an extension. However,
this can prove costly and time
consuming when you consider the
planning permission needed for
such an undertaking. Again this
is where a garden office, which
can in fact add value to your
home, would come into
consideration. Although security
is a large issue, when housing
equipment needed for working at
home, it can prove less cost
effective to have a unit which
is easily broken into. Bespoke
garden offices solve the need to
be secure with robust buildings,
easy on the eye, within your
garden space. The contemporary
designs mean that garden offices
may soon become as familiar as
the garden shed. These garden
offices however, are a lot less
likely to be broken into with
garden office high specification
feature lists including double
glazed windows and secure locks
on the doors.
So with the
revolution taking place, many
employees and self employed, and
even large companies, are in
need of some practical advice on
how to go about such a different
and yet practical way of doing
business. There are some web
sites out there offering advice
and support for these groups,
not only with how to set up a
home office or where to purchase
such things as garden offices
but also ensure that those who
have chosen to work this way do
not feel they have become
isolated.
There are also
many web sites offering work
from home jobs although caution
is advised to thoroughly check
out any references given.
With the next UK
Census due in 2011 speculation
is rife as to what will be
found, but it seems certain that
with the trends as they are, and
the pace of our lives seeming
ever faster, the willingness to
jump ship and become part of the
mass of home workers is
increasing. So, will you be one
of the lucky ones in years to
come, working a stone's throw
from your back door, secure in
the knowledge that many others
are doing the same or will you
still be making that daily run
to the office, which by then,
could easily be empty. |
