Is There Any Proof To Suggest That Many More Staff Are Starting To Work From Home And, If So, Is This Trend Likely To Continue?
Hardly a month passes without fresh data being circulated by the Government, trade bodies or market research companies. The personnel sector is particularly active in this field and every aspect of the world of work is frequentlyinspected. One of the most debated topics in the field is the growing inclination for workers to Work From Home. There is no doubt the United Kingdom’s workforce has become less rigid in the last 30 years. Lots of older people will be able to remember the times when the power of the trade unions preserved the “one man, one job” scenario. This brought about great inefficiency in working practices and stopped British companies from being competitive in world markets. The worst example of this was the motor industry with the old British Leyland company being known more for the instances of its workers being on strike than the reliability of its products. The best advertisement for the success of the amendments in that industry’s operating methods is that Japanese corporations such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota have all set up factories in England.
A newly-found flexibility in the British labour force now sees staff who are proficient in a range of skills and has given rise to the expression “multi-tasking”. After this flexibility had been introduced by one company in a particular field and the advantages had become apparent in lower costs and increased profits, then other firms were obliged copy them just to remain competitive. While this change had been happening almost universally within the workplace another less well known one was starting to gather momentum. This was the issue of allowing employees to Work From Home. The enormous advances in broadband technology were causing many workers to enquire 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 Internet has produced the formation of thousands of new start-up firms, most, if not all of which use modern technology to the full and describe themselves as an Internet Business. As most of these new businesses were not inhibited by traditional working methods they were quite relaxed about allowing staff to Work From Home. It is obvious that there are some functions which can never become Online Jobs due to the nature of the work involved but as newer technology is invented on an almost weekly basis this increases the probability that even more staff will be able to work at home.
While an Internet Business may be comfortable with the notion of Online Jobs, what has been the reaction of the more established ones? This is where market research 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 a similar figure for every single year from 2002 to 2008 although their figures were based on employed workers only, not those who were self-employed. Where the figures start to show a trend is for those people who only Work From Home on occasions, not permanently. In 2007 5 percent ofpeople 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 4% in 2007 to 5 percent in 2008. The data suggest 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.
Tags: business, career, jobs, jobs online, online jobs
April 14th, 2010 at 9:40 am
INternet business is spreading really fast now a days.