Written by Hardly a month passes without fresh data being issued by the Government, trade bodies or market research companies. The personnel sector is noticeably active in this regard and every facet of the world of work is dissected and inspected. One of the most discussed issues in the field is the increasing preference for workers to Work From Home. There is no question the United Kingdom’s workforce has become more flexible in recent times. Lots of older people will be able to recall the years when the influence of the unions protected the “one man, one job” scenario. This brought about such inefficiency in working practices and prevented British firms from being competitive in world markets. The worst example of this was the motor industry with the now defunct British Leyland company being known more for the regularity of its workers being on strike than the quality of its vehicles. The best advertisement for the success of the changes in that industry’s working practices is that Japanese manufacturers such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota have all set up factories in England.
A new flexibility in the United Kingdom’s labour force has produced employees who are trained in a variety of skills and has been responsible for the expression “multi-tasking”. When this flexibility had been adopted by the first firm in a particular industry and the advantages had become clear in lower costs and increased profits, then other firms were compelled copy them if they wanted to remain competitive. During the time that this change had been happening almost universally within the workplace another less publicised one was beginning to gather momentum. This was the question of allowing workers to Work From Home. The major advances in computer technology were prompting many people to enquire whether their jobs, which were at that time called office jobs, white collar jobs or some other such term, could now be called Online Jobs.
The Internet has caused the formation of a lot of new start-up ventures, many of which use new technology to the full and call themselves as an Internet Business. As most of these new businesses were not tied by traditional working systems they were quite open to allowing people to Work From Home. Obviously there are some occupations which will never become Online Jobs due to the nature of the work involved but as newer technology is utilised on a regular basis this increases the probability that a lot more people will be able to work at home.
While an Internet Business may be comfortable with the idea of Online Jobs, what has been the reaction of the more conventional ones? This is where figures can help to furnish us with an answer. An Omnibus Survey from July 2008 showed that 3 percent of ALL workers always worked from home. National Travel surveys had produced an identical for every single year from 2002 to 2008 but their figures were based on employed workers only, not those who were self-employed. Where the figures start to show a pattern is for those people who only Work From Home on occasions, not permanently. In 2007 five percent ofpeople worked at home once a week but this grew to 7 percent in 2008. Similarly, the figure for working at home once a month showed a rise from 4% in 2007 to five percent in 2008. The statistics seem to imply that the established, traditional business is likely to follow the lead of the Internet Business in allowing some of its staff to Work From Home.
