Barely a day goes by without more statistics being issued by the Government, trade bodies or market research companies. The human resources sector is particularly active in this field and every aspect of the world of work is constantly and inspected. Among the most deliberated themes in the field is the increasing trend for people to Work From Home. There is no question the British workforce has become less rigid in the last few decades. Many older people will be able to recall the times when the strength of the trade unions protected the “one man, one job” scenario. This caused great inefficiency in working practices and prevented British industry from being competitive in world markets. The worst example of this was the motor industry with the now defunct British Leyland company being recognised more for the regularity of its staff being on strike than the quality of its vehicles. The best advertisement for the success of the amendments in that industry’s working practices is that Japanese companies such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota have all established factories in England.
A newly-acquired flexibility in the United Kingdom’s labour force has produced staff who are trained in a number of disciplines and has been responsible for the word “multi-tasking”. After this flexibility had been adopted by a business in a particular sector and the positives had become obvious in lower costs and higher profits, then other firms were compelled follow suit just to remain competitive. While this change had been occurring almost everywhere within the workplace another less well known one was looking to gather momentum. This was the question of permitting employees to Work From Home. The rapid advances in computer technology were prompting increasing numbers of workers to wonder 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 caused the formation of thousands of new start-up ventures, the majority of which use new technology to the full and call themselves as an Internet Business. As many of these new firms were not held back by traditional working systems they were quite willing to allow people to Work From Home. Clearly there are some occupations which will 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 possibility 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 staff always worked from home. National Travel surveys had identified a similar figure for every single year from 2002 to 2008 albeit their figures were based on employed workers only, not those who were self-employed. Where the figures do show a trend is for those workers who only Work From Home on occasions, not permanently. In 2007 5 percent ofworkers worked at home once a week but this grew to seven percent in 2008. Similarly, the figure for working at home once a month rose from 4% in 2007 to 5 percent in 2008. The statistics seem to suggest that the established, traditional business is beginning to follow the lead of the Internet Business in permitting some of its staff to Work From Home.