Is There Any Proof To Suggest That More Staff Are Looking To Work From Home And, If So, Is The Trend Likely To Be Maintained?
Hardly a day goes by without more figures being produced by the Government, trade bodies or market research companies. The employment sector is especially active in this regard and every facet of the world of work is frequentlyassessed. One of the most debated issues in the field is the growing trend for employees to Work From Home. There can be no disputing the fact that the British workforce has become more flexible in recent times. Many older people will be able to remember the times when the strength of the trade unions protected the “one man, one job” scenario. This caused such inefficiency in working practices and prevented British businesses from being competitive in world markets. A typical example of this was the motor industry with the old British Leyland company being known more for the frequency of its employees being on strike than the reliability of its cars. The best advertisement for the success of the alterations in that industry’s operating methods is that Japanese companies such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota have all established factories in England.
A newly-acquired flexibility in the United Kingdom’s workforce has resulted in staff who are capable in a range of areas and has been responsible for the word “multi-tasking”. Once this flexibility had been embraced by a company in a particular sector and the advantages had become obvious in reduced costs and improved profits, then other companies were compelled copy them if they wanted to remain competitive. At the same time as this change had been occurring almost everywhere within the workplace another less well known one was looking to show some momentum. This was the question of allowing employees to Work From Home. The vast advances in satellite technology were causing increasing numbers of workers to wonder whether their jobs, which were at that time described as office jobs, white collar jobs or some other such term, could now be described as Online Jobs.
The World Wide Web has produced the formation of a great number of new start-up companies, most, if not all of which use modern technology to the full and call themselves as an Internet Business. As many of these new ventures were not restricted by traditional working systems they were quite open to allowing workers to Work From Home. It is obvious that there are some occupations which could never become Online Jobs due to the kind of work involved but as newer technology is utilised on a regular basis this increases the possibility that a lot more workers will be able to work at home.
While an Internet Business may be happy with the notion of Online Jobs, what has been the response of the more traditional ones? This is where figures can help to furnish us with an answer. An Omnibus Survey from July 2008 showed that three percent of ALL employees always worked from home. National Travel surveys had identified the same for every year from 2002 to 2008 but their figures were based on employed workers only, not those who were self-employed. Where the figures begin to show a trend is for those workers who only Work From Home on occasions, not permanently. In 2007 five percent ofworkers worked at home once a week but this rose to 7 percent in 2008. Similarly, the figure for working at home once a month climbed from four percent in 2007 to five percent in 2008. The data imply that the established, traditional business is starting to follow the lead of the Internet Business in allowing some of its staff to Work From Home.