Work Nouveau

With Telework  very much on the agenda again driven by the desire to be a good corporate citizen and reduce commuting carbon footprint, reduce real estate costs and improve general productivity. The only problem is that many home environments are unsuitable for dedicated teleworkers, and in some cases local legislation can be very unfriendly to home offices, insisting that they comply with health and safety regulations applicable to formal office environments.

Home environments can be unsuitable for several reasons:

1. A simple lack of space.
   The kitchen table may be good for a couple of hours but not as a permanent environment.
2. A family at home.
   The excitement of having a key family member permanently accessible can prove too much of a temptation for some partners, and the discipline involved can cause family strains.
3. Infrastructure.
   Despite massive investments many areas still do not have access to consistently good broadband communications. This can give problems with video conferences, and SaaS environments.
4. Your home may be fine but neighbours may not be adapted to a working environment. It is surprising how distracting lawnmowers, pumps, drills, barking dogs, pools etc. can be when trying to work.
5. An office at home can lead to being always accessible. For many this is not an issue or can easily be controlled, but continual binge working can be dangerous for your health both physical and social.

Now this may sound like I’m rubbishing telework, no far from it, it means that the telework location needs to be carefully thought out. In the early days of the telework movement there was a lot of focus on telecentres or telecottages. These would be centres local to the teleworkers’ homes where they could work, share expensive equipment, high speed internet connections and at the same time have access to shared expertise and training. There were variations on this, satellite offices operated by employers close to where the employees lived, office centres where facilities could be rented by the hour, day, week or whatever period is needed, or more recently individual companies offering to rent out one or more desks in their own underutilised office environment.

For various reason the telecentre has not become a major part of the telework scenario, although in some countries it is stronger than others. The main reason is that technology costs have come down to the level where they do not need to be shared, and the systems and communications are sufficiently reliable not to need a technician at hand all the time. However shared office centres have gained a lot of custom especially for the mobile teleworkers who need to have access to quality facilities in many locations, but in general these facilities can be expensive to justify for many would be teleworkers.

The final category is that of office sharing, and this is gaining increased attention as companies need to cover the costs of unused office space. This may be because it was surplus to requirements anyway, or their own telework programme had liberated space, or because of staff reductions, whatever the reason it makes sense to use it rather than just let it be an overhead. There are quite a few web-sites offering information on these offers, and in many cases the costs involved are similar to the real cost of setting up and maintaining a home office.

If you are putting together a telework program, considering requesting telework from your employer or just setting out on your own business, I suggest you take a look at the sharing option, it overcomes a lot of issues associated with working from home whist retaining many of the advantages.

Here are a couple of sites as an example:

• http://www.sharemyspace.co.uk/

• http://www.deskspacegenie.co.uk/

• http://www.sharemyoffice.co.uk/

• http://www.shareyouroffice.com/ – USA

If anyone know of other sites around the world offering similar services, or have experience of using them,  do let me know.