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Teleworking in the UK?
neiljt writes "As a UK-based IT worker living about a 90-minute journey from London, I am interested in the idea of working from home, or teleworking. In the UK, however, the take-up of this practice has been less than frantic. My own immediate plan is to find work at home here in the UK, however my ultimate aim would be to find employment, which gives me the freedom to live where I choose. What barriers exist to working in the UK for a non-UK (e.g. US) employer. What about a UK citizen living outside the UK working for a UK or US employer? (Feel free to substitute your country of residence)"
It would be interesting to hear both from employers who support (or would support) this model, and from employees who have successfully negotiated employment at home.
In general, have your experiences been positive? If you have had problems, how have they been resolved? And now that the technology has been available for at least 10 years, will teleworking ever take off in the UK?"
"The arguments will probably be familiar to most here, but I will state them anyway, just to be sure you know how I'm thinking.
Advantages for me:
- Save journey time of 3 hours per day
- Save travel expenses
- Save travel frustration (delays, crowds, mobile phone idiocy, etc.)
- Be fresh and alert when I start work
- Feel better at the end of the working day
- Be at work promptly each day
- Work in a pleasant/relaxed environment
- Ready access to my (large) technical library
- Cost savings
- Office space savings
- Improved productivity
- Increased motivation
- Reduced traffic congestion
- Reduction in total travel and therefore pollution
- Employer needs to monitor quantity and quality of work performed
- Internet connectivity (mine currently limited to 56Kb)
It would be interesting to hear both from employers who support (or would support) this model, and from employees who have successfully negotiated employment at home.
In general, have your experiences been positive? If you have had problems, how have they been resolved? And now that the technology has been available for at least 10 years, will teleworking ever take off in the UK?"
Yes there are advantages to teleworking.
Yes it would save company money.
It will never catch on though. Bosses like to have their staff lined up in little cubicles. They like to feel in control. In the minds of most bosses empire building, politics, and wanting to look like they are in charge is important. Company money isn't.
How many times has your company wasted money on stupidity because some overpaid fool thought it was a good idea??
My company does this often.
.. and you want that to be somewhere nice... The best option is to start your own business.
I work from home full-time, and make a good rate doing it. (Occasionally I have business travel, to client sites, say about 10 days/year.) I work for an software consultancy.
The way I got here was to work for this group full-time on-site on a number of different engagements over a few years. When the first opportunity to work at home came up, I took it. I provide my own hardware and net connectivity.
Since I have proven my ability to get results and to do whatever it takes to satisfy the customer, I got this chance. Since I still make my dates and satisfy the customer, I am still afforded this opportunity.
It has its downsides, no doubt. My 2-year old daughter doesn't always understand when I can't interrupt myself and come do what she wants. But the time I've been able to spend with her has been priceless, from coming up to eat lunch with her, to dropping by the pool in the afternoon for a half-hour swim, it's been wonderful.
I consider myself lucky and work hard to keep this opportunity in my life.
Starting your own business is great. . . but don't expect overnight success. I've been working for the last 3 years almost 'non-stop' apart from a change of country and wedding.
Really, it depends on your personality. Do you have sufficent self-motivation, can you whip your own butt into doing work when you'd really rather just laze in front of the TV.
It's a choice - do you want the comfort of a consistant (??) pay cheque but without the freedom of time-choice, or vice-versa.
I recently had the opportunity to telecommute if I was to become an employee of another company, doing almost the same thing I'm doing now - but, then it struck me - the most important thing to me is the ability to do as I please, I'm just exceedingly fortunate that I manage to still make enough sales.
Regards.
Ask any frustrated new mother who sits at home with baby. The situation is similar. Raising a baby is a lot of work (and you have to be on call all the time) but there is little social contact.
Work is for many people as much a social activity as it is a financial activity. Being with coworkers who are roughly doing the same as you and working for the same goals does make a difference and being alone will driveyou crazy.
Also, the whole "discussions at the watercooler" effect tends to go away if you are not there. Those discussion are sometimes very important.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
It is akin to migratory animals who have no choice but to spend half their lives moving south, then the other moving north.
Moving house to be near work is nearly as bad as being a migrant beast. This is the 21stC ... why should we still live to work. Whatever happened to all of the "increased leisure time" that technology was supposed to bestow on us all??
Bah!! Work To Live - Not Live To Work!!
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Please thing of that you will become lonely and strange if you do that for longer time.
Move to the city or find a job close to home.
I am currently living in Tokyo a city that is 3 times bigger than London so I know what I am talking about for NOT commuting.
It is "normal" for Japanese to commute 1 1/2 hours each way after working 12 hours here.
Regards,
Lars
I live in Amersham, and it takes me about an hour each way into London in my car each day (I work in Covent Garden). I don't really see any problems with this kind of commuting - I don't need to get up particularly early (I need to be in the office by 09:30, so I leave around 08:00) and I usually get home at around 19:15.
I've considered teleworking (possible for maybe 30% of my work), but I ENJOY London and all it's facilities, I don't want to be stuck in a small town (even a nice one like Amersham or Marlow) all of the time. You've got to ask yourself, what would you DO with that extra 2 or 3 hours? I'm pretty sure I'd just waste it myself.
That was classic intercourse!
If you can work from home, then you're proving to your employer that someone in Asia could work from their home for 1/5 your salary. There is a good chance you will ever find yourself unemployed as soon as it's "working really well for the company".
The reality is your employer was simple beta testing its remote worker processes.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
I know there are as many opinions about this as there are people, but, for me, working from home is not even desirable for the reasons it's supposed to be good.
*When there was someone in the house and I worked from home, (a) I couldn't get anything done but more importantly (b) I didn't want to see her that damn much anyway.
*When there wasn't anybody in the house, my god how maddening to get up, go sit over there, do stuff, go over there, go to sleep, repeat. Like being in an institution.
This isn't the usual "it's no good because you can't get your work done" thing", this is the "it's no damn fun" thing. It's just my opinion, and I'm sure some people have completely different experiences, but I was WAY happier going over to *that* building to do shit just cause I at least get to see two different buildings! and I have a reason to shave and get out of the pajamas...
But an office is a drag too. My favorite was when I was an accounting consultant. We had about 35 clients. I'd be in one place in the morning, another in the afternoon, sometimes one place for a whole week, sometimes at home. The variety of environments and people was stimulating.
Well, I wasn't awake in time to post this: you beat me to it. Getting up in a timely manner - especially if you're in a different time zone - takes a lot of discipline. I've been working from home for 3.5 years. It's been tough at times. It didn't help that starting the job coincided with moving not just to a new city, but a new country. You're right: the loneliness is the hardest part of working like this, and if you suffer from seasonal changes, winters can become especially nasty. I didn't think I did, until the last three winters.
All my friends are my wife's friends. Well, I've started making some of my own, but when you don't get out socially on your own terms, it's slow. You've really got to work hard on getting to meet people, or you'll go crazy for social interaction... and no, chatting on the phone or IM or email with people at work 3,000 miles (my case) won't cut it. It's almost driven me on a couple of occasions to quit, take the 40-50% pay cut to work locally here in Toronto, but work in an office again.
It's hard to network when you work from home. It's hard for your career to progrees when you work from home: you have to work on easily packaged projects, and more senior roles involving management of others are less effective. You have to have a team that communicates well. Personally, if I were in a hiring position, I wouldn't take on anybody like me who can't even get to the office.
The flexibility makes up for a lot of it. I'm in a position that allows me to re-arrange my hours as I see fit. It takes a lot of self-discipline though, and a lot of trust by my employer. If I want to run errands during the day, or go for a run, I do. If I want to meet my wife for beer when she finishes work, I do. If I want to sleep in the next day with a hang over, I do.
As someone else has said, the best way is to start your own company and find your own clients. I know that can't be done in some cases, but if it's an option, then it should be taken with both hands.
I've worked from home for the last 3 years or so, initially in London (New Malden) and now in Telford. It seemed mad to be living in an expensive London suburb when I didn't need to commute at all. And now we are out of the cramped London conditions, next to the countryside, with NO TRAFFIC JAMS!!!
Again, being in IT, it's fairly easy to get everything you need installed at home. A clutch of PCs and servers, software, some kind of Internet connectivity, and a telephone.
With a permanent Internet connection, IM helps you stay in touch, and to be honest I probably make more of an effort to chat when i see friends & family all over the world appear on my IM list. It'll be better if ADSL is actually going to make it to my local exchange...
Telford is about 2.5 - 3 hrs from London, so not exactly a huge distance away, and my trips there (and to Reading) can take place up to 3 times a week without any problems - any more than that and it would be a bit tiring...
But as someone else has said - if you have kids, it's great. My first child I was working a 1-1.5hr drive away. She was just getting up when I left, and just going to bed when I got back. She seemed to grow up really quickly. My second child, I was working only a 15 minute scooter ride away; I saw much more of her and could take part in more of the school related things. With child number 3, he has just hit 2 years old, and he has a strop when I have to go out for the day! He is so used to me being there, that when I'm not, his whole world gets shattered.
The ability to pop out if needed, take a day off at short notice, and basically decide your own game plan is fantastic.
And long may it continue, I hope...
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