"Homesourcing"

[simplydamon]

A book I am reading mentions that Jet Blue apparently lets a number of their employees work from home. As usual, I have some questions for the community...

1. Would you prefer to work at home for a large percentage of time?

2. Would you, if it had to be an option, work for lower pay to work from home?

3. Do you think it would make you more productive?

4. Do you think this will continue to grow with the advent of high speed internet connections?

5. Do you see any benefits for an employer? For example, reduced costs of property & property maintenance?


As for me, I generally spend a great deal of time working from home on forum & content issues. I find it great because I don't have to work for hours straight, which allows me to take the time to truly reflect on a problem/issue that may confront me. It also gives me some time to work on these issues without "interruptions" of some sort - giving me additional focus that I might not have if I were in the office the whole time.

The questions are being posed because of a section in The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. While I am only part of the way through the book, the book does talk about outsourcing in the first few chapters.

[George]

1. Would you prefer to work at home for a large percentage of time?
Not sure if I would perfer to work home for a large percentage of the time.

2. Would you, if it had to be an option, work for lower pay to work from home?
How low of a pay?

3. Do you think it would make you more productive?
I think productivity may decrease if the I am not focus.

4. Do you think this will continue to grow with the advent of high speed internet connections?
Yes.

[simplydamon]

"2. Would you, if it had to be an option, work for lower pay to work from home?
How low of a pay?"

Not looking for a specific number per se. There are generally costs for workers to actually get to work (time getting to work, time spent in traffic, costs for fuel, costs for work clothes,etc.). I don't think many people actually factor these costs, which are probably more human costs, into their overall salary picture.

For example:
1. It takes you 45 minutes to get to and from work (1.5 hours daily).
2. If you are awake for 15-16 hours, you are generally taking out around 10% of the time that you have available for "you". This doesn't include any time you actually spend getting ready for work (taking care of clothing issues the night before, etc.) and costs with getting there (gas costs & car maintenance costs).


"3. Do you think it would make you more productive?
I think productivity may decrease if the I am not focus."
I think this would largely depend on the person. For me, I generally have a hard time focusing on one thing for an extended period of time (boredom sets in). If I have the time to do thinks as I see fit, however, I am probably more productive (take note of how many posts I make late at night).

[kd5145]

If given the opportunity to work from home, it would not appeal to me. Maybe two days a week at the most. I enjoy the interaction of the office and besides I definatly would be less productive since I would be doing things around the house instead of focusing on my work. I need that structure of a work enviroment.

Would I expect less money? Yes, I would be spending a heck of a lot less.

Potential benefits for employers....

happier employees (if they like to work from home)
possibley reduced WC costs

[simplydamon]

Thanks for your thoughts. I think it points to the fact that it would probably be up to the individual to decide (if such an opportunity was possible).

Another issue that is interesting? If homesourcing were to become a definite possibility for some, geography wouldn't really matter. For example, I could really do my job from any location in the world with a computer connection (most of my work is "virtual" & done online).

Risks:
1. Having an employee not mold with the culture of the company.
2. Some employees would probably take advantage of it in a way that they shouldn't (not working a full schedule,etc.)

[kd5145]

My company does it all the time. The Eastern Division CFO lives in Chicago.

I personally am to much of a spaz to work from home on a regular basis. Not that I would tell anyone I work with that. :)

[lifesab-andthenyoudie]

In my former corporate life (marketing), working from home on a FT basis was not possible. There were times if I had a project crunch deadline and needed no distractions, that I'd work from home.

However, there are many other jobs that can easily be worked from home. I think a lot of parents with young children think this is the answer to their prayers, but it's not. You still need daycare of some sort. You just can not get a FT job done if you don't have a babysitter for very young children.

[simplydamon]

"You just can not get a FT job done if you don't have a babysitter for very young children."

Agreed. I was able to do this while my daughter was young (1-2 years old). It was, however, very hard to stay focused on accomplishing something.

[George]

Thanking care of young children is a job by it self.

[raincoaster]

I work mostly from home. I find that I'm far more productive that way, and the pure waste of money and time that I see at the office frightens me. That said, I must admit that working from home is best suited for jobs that are outcome-based; ie, you're getting paid for producing a particular, discrete product. That way if you goof off, it's apparent. If you do good work, they don't care if you did it in your bikini while working on your tan, or if it took you 15.83 seconds; the money is for the outcome, not for the process or the time.

I like splitting it 60/40 home/office. Because I'm a naturally unstructured person, I really benefit from going in and touching base at meetings and things. It sets me up for the day and I get out of the office before I'm sick of it. There are great things to get from each kind of working, and I'm lucky to be able to take from both.

[simplydamon]

Do you get the feeling that it depends on how you view structure in the workplace? I am definitely unstructured because I need to be creative.

[CollegeSportsGuy]

Working from home is a growing trend and I think it will continue due to the increase in speed of internet connections, lower cost of technology (computers and software), distributed applications like salesforce(dot)com, and the burden of family and overcrowding(traffic/parking & office space).

In fact the employer should pay their employee's a premium for working from home, for home office setup. The employer saves on insurance and equipment costs as well as child care and other services, and they would need less square footage.

So to answer your question, yes I would prefer to work from home and I already do, and yes I would accept lower pay but it shouldn't be that way, this will soon become a big HR issue, pay equity for home-based workers. I can see the lawsuits coming already and the new catch phrase will be work-at-home discriminination.

I would also add this is a great way for women to keep their jobs while having a child, another interesting dynamic the CEO mommy.

A book I am reading mentions that Jet Blue apparently lets a number of their employees work from home. As usual, I have some questions for the community...

1. Would you prefer to work at home for a large percentage of time?

2. Would you, if it had to be an option, work for lower pay to work from home?

3. Do you think it would make you more productive?

4. Do you think this will continue to grow with the advent of high speed internet connections?

5. Do you see any benefits for an employer? For example, reduced costs of property & property maintenance?


As for me, I generally spend a great deal of time working from home on forum & content issues. I find it great because I don't have to work for hours straight, which allows me to take the time to truly reflect on a problem/issue that may confront me. It also gives me some time to work on these issues without "interruptions" of some sort - giving me additional focus that I might not have if I were in the office the whole time.

The questions are being posed because of a section in The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. While I am only part of the way through the book, the book does talk about outsourcing in the first few chapters.

[simplydamon]

Hi,

It looks like this could indeed be a growing trend. I wonder how a company decides they are going to implement a program like this? I do know that some of the companies I've worked for also let people work from home much like this.


http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/homesourcing-trend.asp

" And if they aren't using VoIP and are still using expensive conferencing ports where an agent has to dial-into the PBX, then they need to get on the ball and move to VoIP and save a ton of money. Call centers have more call volume than any other industry, so every cent saved per call counts!"

The part above is interesing because call centers can actually be one of the largest costs for an organization. The more effectively you can handle your customer service contacts through technology, the less expensive it is to handle your customer service loads with greater response times.

[simplydamon]

And another blog mentioning homesourcing...


http://uncoveringinformationlabor.blogspot.com/2005/04/rebranding-telecommuting-as.html

"For the employee's part, telecommuting offers more job flexibility than he'd have in an office. It lowers the cost of buying workplace attire, as no one's around to see whether he's answering phones in his pajamas -- and even better, no one cares, as long as the work gets done. And let's not forget the extra hours that working from home adds to one's free time every day, hours that don't need to be spent commuting on subways and highways, to and from an office. Throw in the fringe benefit for society at large, in getting all those workers off the streets, getting their auto emissions out of the air, and keeping the gasoline they'd have been using from tipping the U.S. trade account deficit the wrong way, and this looks like a solution that just can't be beat."

Note: The interesting point that I was talking about earlier (I believe) is that such a solution has many benefits to society & the individual employee (reduction in real costs to actually get to work,etc.).

"The best example is the often-offshored call-center function. Offshoring customer support might be cheaper, but it can be tremendously frustrating for customers. Challenges around language and culture frequently are compounded by a lack of understanding of the American buying experience. Since an expectation about good customer service was never established, no one measures the frequently negative impact this "cost-saving" measure is having on the relationship with the customer and eventually the bottom line."

Note: As we all know, the world is indeed getting smaller because of telecommunications. But, as is pointed out in the blog article, cultural issues can play a big role in the customer's experience. American consumers tend to have very high expectations about having an issue resolved, want it resolved quickly, and are not against getting "irate" when something goes wrong (some cultures do not really like dealing with someone that is yelling to get something resolved...another long discussion).

I personally like this trend:) If an employee can save money by working at home, it means that the employee has more to spend to keep the wheels of the U.S. economy turning:)

[simplydamon]

And another brief blog about homesourcing. As you can tell, I like this concept:)

http://bostonworks.boston.com/blog/hr/2005/01/home-sourcing.shtml

The stats mentioned really do seem to have some impact on employee happiness...

"According to the Booz Allen study, the annual turnover rate for operations that use home workers is around 10 percent, compared with 50 percent or more for the call-center industry as a whole. Inconvenient schedules and dull work account for much of the difference, says John Bowden, chief operating officer of Willow, a Miramar, Florida-based company that provides what it calls "virtual contact center services." Explains Bowden, "Our agents choose their own hours and who they work for, so I don't have two of the biggest dissatisfiers for agents.""

Note: Having started my current career in a call center, I can state that call centers are very hard places to work. One issue, which might be a legacy issue by now, is that it wasn't uncommon for a company to have policy instructing you to write an employee up if they were five minutes late. Is that really a productive use of a manager's time? You obviously would want to address a pattern of an employee consistently coming in late (if scheduled), but I don't think you want to do it if it happens on a minimal basis. I've always been ok with it as long as the employee makes up that five minutes. I think the job is hard enough w/o making it harder & less human.

[simplydamon]

Hi,

While the information does seem to duplicate some of the information in other articles, I still found much of the info to be useful.


http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3597944?f=archives

I may have missed this in another article, so forgive me if I post something below that is a repeat...

"The New York-based firm also pointed out that 80 percent of companies that use home agents are satisfied with the model, and that 22 percent of companies that haven't tried home-sourcing yet plan to do so within two years."

Note: I wish there was a way to find out which companies are considering it.