I read a really interesting article on a blog called Pick the Brain.
The post addresses how at an increasing rate, with the aid of technology, people are working in non-traditional situations, often from remote locations. The blog makes this point:
In the case of the modern information worker, nearly all tasks involve creative or strategic thinking. The way someone answers an email or interprets a piece of information can differ drastically depending on his or her energy level. Nobody does their best work 5:30 in the afternoon after they’ve been sucking down coffee all day to stay awake.”
I agree.
Pick the Brain argues that most people aren’t continually effective on an 8 hour schedule, that there are peaks and vallies throughout the day. I would agree with this. Why be at work during the vallies and cause the employer to have to pay for that time? I think they put it well when they state it this way,
When workers reach the low energy part of the cycle, they can’t recharge with a non-work activity. The only option is office purgatory. You can’t be highly productive because you’re mentally fatigued, but you can’t recharge because the 8 hour work day requires the appearance of constant productivity. The result is millions of unproductive workers trapped at their desks when they’d rather be doing something else.”
I would also argue that what may be a typically productive time of day for one person, may not one for another. Why not tailor your work day to the hours you work best? Middle of the night? Early in the morning? After lunch until prime-time? When the kids are napping? After they go to bed? You get the point.
Why does this topic interest a non-working, stay-at-home mother of two toddlers? For a few reasons:
1. Even though the technology was not there when I was younger… I ALWAYS pictured working from home via computer and video conference. It was a rare occasion if I pictured it differently.
2. Withen 3 years of joining the career driven workforce, I started working from home via computer and occasional meetings at starbucks :).
3. Should I ever rejoin the workforce, it will be from home. It will be via computer, video conference etc. The schedule will fit into times when I am not taking care of and/or educating my children.
In an article from the Los Angelas Times, by James Flanigan, posted on AOL Jobs entiteled Working at Home Pays Off for Firms.
Flanigan uses a case study from Jet Blue. He points out,
JetBlue has 700 reservation agents working from their abodes (one pictures them sitting there in their robes and slippers, the fridge just a few feet away) with company-supplied personal computers and second phone lines.
To be sure, their wages of $8.50 to $10 an hour are way above the $2 to $3 a day that call-center operators in India and the Philippines often earn.”
Jet Blues Chief Executive David Needleman shares,
“With home working you get more mature people who stay with you,” he says. “There isn’t constant turnover.” What’s more, he adds, employees who take care of business from home tend to “feel better” about their jobs, boosting productivity by an estimated 25 percent.”
Flanigan also uses AT&T to illustrate the benefits of “homesourcing” workers.
“AT&T Corp., for its part, reported that last year it “received over $180 million in operating benefit from telework” — tasks performed away from the office by U.S.-based network planners, human-resources managers, sales personnel and others. With fewer corporate facilities to buy and furnish, real-estate savings accounted for a significant portion of the number.
The advantages for companies employing people to work at home continue to grow along with technological developments. Though not all jobs can be sourced from home, (eg. doctors, pilots, regulated companies, etc,) Many jobs can, and many employers are thinking out of “the box”.
I have the ability to stay home and not work right now and gladly accept it. But someday my children will be a little older, I will be done having more, and my driven brain will not going to cease to exist! At this point I know I will love working from home again, to what capacity? I am not sure. But I’m EXTREMELY thankful that we now live in a world capeable of it.
The Pick the Brain blog sums it up by saying,
Forty years from now we’ll be telling our grandchildren about the olden days when everyone’s mommy and daddy went to work in an office.
He’s probably right!
mommy zabs 
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