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)"

"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

Advantages for my employer:

• Cost savings
• Office space savings
• Improved productivity
• Increased motivation

Advantages for society:

• Reduced traffic congestion
• Reduction in total travel and therefore pollution

There are a number of disadvantages and factors to consider, though none should be insurmountable. A couple might be:

• Employer needs to monitor quantity and quality of work performed
• Internet connectivity (mine currently limited to 56Kb)

The above illustrates that some take-up of the teleworking approach would be in the everybody's interests, but I am frustrated at the lack of good quality resources I have been able to find on the subject. There seems to be plenty available explaining the concept, but very little in the way of actual assignments or contacts. Of course I may have been looking in the wrong places, so if you know better (and I hope you do), please share.

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?"

Comments

loneliness

[kevin lyda]

sounds silly, but it isn't. you're on your own for a lot of the time. you have to do things to keep yourself from going crazy. maybe i've been really lucky, but except for a few rotten apples i've always had great co-workers. and not being able to work with them kind of sucks actually.

Re:My experience

[krist0]

I am living in the netherlands atm and i agree with the above, especially on the part of how when you are not constantly in the office, it affects how you are seen in the organisation, out of sight, out of mind.

Its true that there are alot of positive and negative points about working from home, the most important thing i found for myself was making a area at home that is solely dedicated to work, because if you are sitting in front of the TV with a laptop on your lap, you aren't gonna be too focused on your work.

Mind you, its also a huge time saver as well, as 2 hours work at home (say if you are trying to document something large and complicated) is greater than a whole day at office (constant interuptions)

i think working from home should only be done when its appropriate, but shouldn't be a regular thing unless you are a outside contractor (paid on completion) or if you have small kids or something like that.

Re:My experience

[hbackert]

I was working for the IT department of an austrian company in Tokyo. The company grew and office space is expensive, especially if you need to move to another building. The simple fix was, to let some of the developers and translators, who were working already several years at the company, work from home. After all, those do not need physical appearance and they prefer (due to the nature of work) a quiet environment. Something which is difficult to get in a japanese company.

Worked out well, as it was easy to check they are working by checking the results. The employees (not all wanted to work from home) were generally happy, some office space was saved, travel money (paid usually by the company) was saved, in the end, everyone was happy.

I think the trick in this excercise was, so let experienced workers work from home. People who are known to be able to motivate themself. And as everyone could check the productivity, the usual problem of teleworking, not being able to tell if the employee watches TV or works 8 hours, did not apply here.

3 hours per day... Sitting in traffic...

[Moderation abuser]

5 days per working week is 15 hours per week.

Assume 25 days holiday per year which is 5 weeks, so 47 working weeks/year times 15 hours per week is 705 hours per year spent sitting in traffic...

Assuming 16 waking hours per day, you spend 44 days per year of your awake life just sitting in traffic. A month and a half? That's gotta be fun.

Assuming a working lifetime of say 40 years of the same, that'd be 1760 days, or nearly 5 years of your life you'd spend sitting in a cage, listening to Chris Tarrant on the radio.

Now, isn't that an interesting, exciting, useful, challenging and productive way to spend 5 years of your life?

Re:3 hours per day... Sitting in traffic...

[mccalli]

Assuming 16 waking hours per day, you spend 44 days per year of your awake life just sitting in traffic. A month and a half? That's gotta be fun.

It can be. Honestly.

How? Well, I work during the day. I have a 16-month old daughter to look after when I get home, and I often have paperwork too. The travel time can be quite relaxing in comparison - time to sit on your own for a bit, listen to some music...no trouble. If you're capable of relaxing rather descending into road-rage, then it actually can be a good time. A break to get a moment's thinking time for yourself.

Cheers,
Ian

I found it incredibly depressing

[mark2003]

I have worked for several consultancies, including big 5, who all allowed home working, mainly due to the fact that they never had enough hot desks in the offices.

Whilst for some tasks it works really well, e.g. reading documentation, writing presentations etc., for most work I find that it inhibits communication between colleagues. Communication (or lack of) is one the biggest issues that companies face. Many companies spend a fortune implementing all kinds of systems and processes to improve communication, but often the most efficient and cheapest way is to have the entire project sitting at adjacent desks. People then just tend to chat about problems, solutions etc.

Personally though my biggest problem was sitting at home by myself for an entire day with no-one to talk to. I also found it much harder to motivate myself and would often just put things off while I watched day time TV. Maybe I'm just a lazy b*stard but I don't think I'm that unusual.

Re :Teleworking in the UK?

[TallEmu]

Disadvantages for you I can think of are timezones and exchange rates.

The A$ is currently worth not very much at all (too lazy to look it up) so working "over here" would not be possible - A$50 is a decent enough hourly rate in Sydney, which I think is about 16 pounds and around US$25. I doubt, therefore that someone in the US or UK would want to Telework to Aus. (but contact me with outsourcing opportunities *grin*).

Timezones. I used to have an office in Switzerland (I am based in Sydney) during the .com boom times. It was hell trying to co-ordinate properly. Language, culture, timezones and the asshole quotient (French people) made it difficult to work effectively - and we had an office!!

It is amazing that an 8 hour time difference and a lack of understanding on the other side made it difficult. I was regularly attending meetings at 2am and staying back until 7 or 8 on a daily basis. We couldn't change hour working hours much as we had Aussie customers to deal with.

Now I am working from home by necessity, and I must say I find it more effective, but this is a factor of who I work with rather than the location.

Motivation is key. Time management is a must. Install instant messaging client to reduce comms cost and provide a feeling of connectivity - you can page people to say hi, ask a question.

Working from home you can also get a sense of Isolation, of not being part of the "real world".

It was good recently that I had to go work in the city, put on a suit and get on the train. I enjoyed the variation, it got me out of the house - and also made me appreciate my lair more when I got back home!

Re:My take on it...

[1s44c]

Our sister office is in London. Having worked with my UK based compatriots for a few years now, I can safely say that while they have no objections about working late hours THEY DON'T DO S**T DURING THEIR ENTIRE WORK DAY.

I work in the UK.

I hate to say it, but you are right in a lot of cases.

I see a lot of people talk about football and do very little work all day. They then start working at 5 pm just so they can be seen to be working hard when the boss walks past later.

I don't do this, I work when I'm paid to work. But I see people getting pay raises for this.

Re:My experience

[AKnightCowboy]

I also found that there was a tendancy by others to regard myself as less committed, simply by lack of physical presence, even though in every other way it was clear I was playing more than a full role.

You'll probably never get over this though. If no one can see you at work, you're not working. You could be sleeping at your desk and your coworkers would have a higher view of you than a telecommuter. I don't know if it's jealously or just plain incomprehension of the fact that someone doesn't need to sit their butt at the office to do work for the company.

It's not like you're sitting there sorting and filing papers or working at a factory. All you need is a computer with an Internet connection and most of us could do 99% of our jobs in our pajamas from home. Of course, then you get the frightening prospect that your work could just as easily be farmed off to some low-payed worker in India. It's a double-edged sword.

Another my experience

[swordfishBob]

I'm in Australia, and I telework 4 days a week. Actually, I telework about 6 days a week and turn up in the office on the other day, but have very flexible hours. I've also done some technical writing for a usa company. (free plug: www.devx.com) Situation: I got my setup as I have to provide after-hours remote support to our manufacturing sites during the production season (cotton harvest, March-July). Also, I do both development and network admin tasks, and cannot focus on the devt with all the interruptions in the office. Still being in place once a week does help the relations with other staff - even without realising it we tend to give people more credibility in person than remotely. "The office" is only half an hour away, but that's "the next town" - ie around here it's considered a hassle driving that long to get to work. otoh, half of "the office" (including my manager) is being relocated to another town 5 hours away. I got the option to choose, and chose to stay. Most didn't get an option, they were told. I started with a modem-router, then moved to ISDN, and now ADSL, which I've ramped up to the highest speed available here. (I do at times download huge fixpacks and tools under development subscriptsions with IBM and MS). Foreign Work I was approached via email to do some tech writing, by someone who observed my activity on a relevant newsgroup. I'm paid a flat rate per article of a certain size, in $US. (The jolly exchange rate movements have wiped 20% off my current invoice - dang!) This has worked fairly well, with an added bonus that I can write while my editor is asleep, giving next-day turnaround on minor edits. I have to declare the income as "other foreign income", ie it doesn't fit in any normal categories on the tax form. Actually the tax office wouldn't even know unless they audited my bank account records. Lifestyle Working from home with flexible hours has been great, as I have two young children. It meant I could be at home with #1 while my wife was in hospital with #2. It also means my wife can do part-time work. The lifestyle thing can go either way. There's the danger that you won't self motivate. There's also the risk that you end up spending every waking moment in front of the computer, working, feeling no other sense of identity. You can start in your pyjamas and forget to get dressed. (That's if it actually matters). It works for some. It doesn't work for others. Having a dedicated "work area" is essential, especially if anyone else lives in the house. It's then easy to define "I'm at work now" by which room you're in. Finding work It's just another arena for the same question - how do you find work at all? It can depend on contacts, on reputation, on spending time hunting or you might just fluke it like I did. It depends on managers' perceptions and requirements. Good Luck. I hope it works for you, but don't forget to go meet people sometimes :-)

out of London

[Cally]

I'm also in the UK, coincidentally about 90 mins from (central) London. Before I took this job I'd lived & worked in London for 8 years. I was/am amazed at the way everyone seems to accept spending hours a day sitting in car commuting. Give me trains any day - you can read, sleep, finish that last minute report... :)

Some of my group are often on the road visiting clients (mostly doing firewall installs but also presales and other consultancy); personally I'm looking forward to the time I get myself some proper accomodation, work pay for broadband and I can do my (pentesting) work from home at least some of the time. That said, I'd go bonkers if I never came into the office at all.

Re:My experience

[Cally]

My experience is that the political stuff varies from company to company. Current employer has an amazingly low level of background political radiation. We have several people who very rarely come in, including someone who works from the Czech republic... and anyway, most of us (geek types) do most of our in-office communication using mail/IRC/whatever anyway. What difference does it make whether someone's on the next floor or the next country, either way you won't see them very often. So long as they answer mail, it doesn't really matter.

From an Employer's Perspective

[NibbleAbit]

For 15 years now, I have hired nothing but 'work at home' programmers, both locally (in Canada) and abroad. Locally is definately easier. I spend 5 to 15 hours per week on the phone with programmers, all of them long distance, but at least in the same country. When I hired abroad, I found I was much more concious of phone costs, and conversations were much briefer. There is also the curency issue. We get paid in our local currency, and I don't like taking the exchange risk. It can quickly take a marginal profit (a project gone bad) to a loss.

I have no problem trying overseas programmers again, but only for very well defined projects, and not where the client requirements are in the slightest bit fluid.

Re:He can't afford the accomodation

[Cally]

> A tiny 2 bedroom flat in London city center can cost £200k-£500k GBP
> which would be $320k-$800k.
>

So get a few friends together and rent a house. We paid £1100 pcm for a 4 bedroom place with std. mod cons, front & back garden, 7 mins walks from the tube. (Granted, this was a bit of a bargain, but they're still out there if you're prepared to look.) Get a geek house going and you might be able to club together for a leased line, too. And think of the savings in video rentals when the Matrix, LotR etc come out ;)

And anyway, tech workers in central London still earn a fsck of a lot more than the average wage, even post-boom and with the City firing thousands. In fact this HELPS- without all those huge bonuses, the demand for very high-end gaffs has dropped off a lot, and theoretically at least that'll ripple down the accomodation food-chain. IYSWIM.

An experience of this:

[evrybodygonsurfin]

I work for a small software/web company located about half an hour outside of London

About six months ago, it was decided that all technical members of staff would be allowed to work from home whenever they wanted as long as they weren't supposed to be in a meeting or something.

About half of the staff here have never bothered doing this; I have tried it a few times but usually come in. Why?

• While it might sound great, it is actually pretty depressing seeing what goes on in your street during the day.
• You just get a call on your cellphone every five minutes about some trivial query that would usually be shouted across the office.
• You inevitably need some essential item that you have left on your desk.
• If I, personally, work from home my wife expects me to have fully cleaned the house and prepared dinner when she gets back.

• In short, you can keep it. I'm friends with the guys I work with and I like taking my lunch at a pub on the side of the Thames...

Teleworking

[noidd]

Interesting thread.

I wanted to work from home, none of my previous customers were happy with me doing it since they paid me per hour. Paying people per hour gave them this strange compulsion to actually have me on site so that I could see that I was actually working.

I changed my relationships with my customers such that I now quote for "lumps of work" or "deliverables". They say "We want XYZ", I say "Thats £2.50". How I do it is none of their concern - how long it takes me, what I do in the intervening time is my business - not theirs.

How do you sell that view?

Advantages to Customer:
1) Liability. When things go wrong, if the consultant is on a time-based contract then the bill to the customer is as long as it takes to fix the problem. Ie, open-ended liability. If things go wrong YOU get the bill. Goodbye IR35.
2) Accountability. Once you have given the customer the comfort level they need that you can provide the services to them competantly, they are more than happy to outsource their non-core business functions out.
3) Cost. If the customer insists on working you on T+M, provide an incentive. I have two rates, Rate A is for formal training and knowledge transfer or anything which is ON-SITE. Rate B is for anything else which is OFF-SITE.

I'm not going to publish my rates here, but to give you an idea - my discounted rate (offsite) is 40% of my normal rate (on-site).

This means that the customer saves 40% on his costs if he doesn't mandate my consultants being on-site.

What does this mean for me now?

Well, I've been working mainly from the home office for the best part of two years, my customer visits are on average two or three times a month.

I have my green-card, I'm emigrating to the US on July 1st. What difference does this make to my customer? None at all. Does my customer mind? Not in the slightest. If they need me on site a few days consultancy easily covers travel expenses.

My customer continues paying my UK company. My company continues paying UK taxes. I continue paying (some) UK taxes, and according to two Tax Attournies in the US I am exempt from US taxes.

I don't believe them.

Hope that gives you some ideas and food for thought.

local coffeehouse

[lpret]

I used to work at Starbucks, and a customer would come in at about 10-11 in the morning and stay until about 5-6 with his laptop and work. We got to talking, and he was a developer for a software company in Seattle (this is in Dallas). He said he tried working at home, but he needed to get out of the house and go somewhere to see other people and interact.

So perhaps working out of home isn't the best idea, but perhaps your local coffeehouse might allow that simple social interaction that would help.