SHEFFIELD, England. The morning commute to work is a ritual that is cemented throughout almost every society, yet the trend of telecommuting continues to chip away at that old routine as the way we live and work changes rapidly.
In the UK, U.S. and everywhere in between, technological evolution has allowed a workplace revolution to take place in the form of telecommuting. The workplace of the future has gone beyond the cubicle and corner office. It's at home, the coffee shop, the beach and anywhere the mobile worker can flip open his or her notebook computer or wireless handheld device.
The crush of cars on freeways and highways has no doubt led to the telecommuting - also called teleworking - trend that has reached more that 12 million employees in the United States that spend more than 8 hours per week working away from the office, according to Gartner Dataquest, a leading information technology research and advisory company in the U.S. The number from Gartner shows a dramatic increase from the year 2000, when just 6 million Americans put in 8 hours a week outside the office.
Meanwhile in the UK, more than 2.1 million Brits work from home and around 8 million more spend at least some of their working week in their homes instead of at the office, according to the Office of National Statistics.
"The growth in employees working outside the office in both the U.S. and UK is substantial" said Sarah Laycock of Tierlinear, a UK tech company which has developed a business productivity tool ideal for today's telecommuters called BT BizBox. "Telecommuting is going to be a fact of life for all businesses; it's just a matter of time."
The numbers certainly point in that direction. According to Gartner, 27.5 percent of Americans will be teleworking by 2009. The trend is likely to continue in the UK as well, as more and more employers in both countries are coming on board. A survey from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reported in September 2007 that 46 percent of British firms now offer workers the opportunity of telecommuting, compared to just 11 percent in 2004.
As is the case in the U.S., the stimulus behind the popularity of working outside the office are due to inadequate transportation systems and advances in digital and mobile technology.
"That teleworking has quadrupled in three years is testament to how far and fast firms have come in adopting new technologies for the benefit of staff and the business," CBI deputy director general John Cridland said in the report.
It's technologies like Tierlinear.s BT BizBox that has made businesses more comfortable and confident with the idea of telecommuting. The BT BizBox incorporates several methods of functionality for the small and medium-size business, with secure forms of customer, employee and contact management, as well as quoting, invoicing and scheduling mechanisms. It's a simple solution that works in sync with the 21st century mobile world.
BT BizBox is an online web-based application, which can be accessed from anywhere by any Internet enabled device,. said Laycock. .This makes it ideal for the rising number of home/flexible workers as they can access all the centrally stored company information away from the office making them more productive. BT BizBox is also launching new functionality that helps the traveling sales people by providing them with an easy to use route optimization tool..
The phrase "telecommuting" was coined by Jack Niles, who in 1973 was Director for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Southern California. Niles began his research into telecommuting and teleworking during the early 70s in an area primed for such an event. The Southern California basin, with its notorious traffic congestion, high fuel costs and parking problems, was where telecommuting had the opportunity to really take off.
After a slow start, the rise of personal computer, followed by the Internet and mobile devices has put telecommuting into overdrive. The improvement now in broadband is offering workers new choices in the way they live and work. Tierlinear.s partner, British Telecom, is fostering that mobile environment with advances that have increased bandwidth and other high-speed broadband services throughout Europe.
Telecommuting has its pluses and minus, but at its current state, the advantages are outweighing the disadvantages for both worker and business. Telecommuting provides employee flexibility, allows working parents more freedom, increases employee productivity and allows companies to outsource and hire employees that would otherwise not be available.
One of telecommuting.s major drawbacks is ensuring a secure environment for company data. With a workforce more spread out and less centralized, companies face an increased risk of confidential data being lost or misused. It.s an issue that companies supporting the teleworking world like Tierlinear are well-versed in.
"Security is of utmost concern with BT BizBox" said Laycock. "All data is securely behind firewalls and is monitored 24 hours per day by security specialists. Software, hardware and human intrusion detection systems and methodologies constantly monitor the systems ensuring no one is accessing the servers that is not supposed to be."
Along with products like the BT BizBox, a host of other products like webcams and video conferencing software will see a sharp rise over the next decade as companies downsize office space and increase workers ability to access remote locations.
With all these tech toys, along with PDAs and email, the teleworker could conceivably be on the clock 24 hours a day. Telecommuting may give the sense that workers can basically do whatever they want if they don.t have the boss looking over their shoulders. But the reality is that workers are going to have to prove that they.re worth their salaries by communicating their value.
"Telecommunicating doesn't come without its pitfalls for the worker" said Laycock. "It's going to be an environment where you have to sell your self-worth a little harder, while setting limits and boundaries to avoid burnout."
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Sarah Laycock
Tierlinear Ltd.
Email: slaycock@tierlinear.com
Phone: (0) 7920 106998
