Why Work Remotely?
By 2020, 50% of the UK workforce will work remotely. In real terms, that is essentially saying that every employee who can work without a fixed location, ie everyone who isn't a nurse or a fireman or a chef or a Health & Safety inspector, will. This is huge, and represents one of the greatest changes to the social and economic landscape of our time. Yet many people seem reticent about the idea of remote work.
I've been a full-time remote worker for well over 90% of my career and I cannot imagine going back to office work, not at least without some sort of serious incentive! The advantages to remote work, both for the employer and the employee, are almost limitless. Remote work is, put simply, a more humancentric way to earn and live.
Remote work offers massively reduced office costs, as well as allowing employers to tap into a much deeper and wider talent pool. Need an expert, but she's in the next town over? Let her telecommute, and she can join your team. Need a pool of low-level workers to crank through administrative tasks such as data entry or compliance checks? Hire from abroad and keep overheads low whilst still offering employment opportunities in the globalised economy. And nobody has to waste hours of their day, and a percentage of their paycheck, commuting.
By levelling the playing field based on what people can do rather than where they are, a new wave of ethical employers should rise into the marketplace. Disabled/differently abled people, such as those with physical disabilities or crippling social phobias, can work on an equal footing with their colleagues. Female employees can use telecommuting to off-set some of the unpleasant and unfair ramifications of dealing with periods at work; it is hard to look professional when you are squirming in pain, but with remote work, I can sit at home in bed festooned with hot water bottles and nobody I'm managing is any the wiser. Nobody gives a damn if you have an elasticated waistband on your work trousers if they can't see you except from the torso up on conference calls.
And all of this combines to produce happier, more productive workers. The flexibility to live a fully integrated life away from a whole load of the irritations which make people under-perform, – irritating co-workers, stressful commutes, burdensome “professionalism standards” - frees employees to become masters of themselves, and to see their work as something to be proud of and to invest in, rather than as something to be endured. Most people in an office environment revert to being teenagers at school, knowing they need to be there but also looking for every available opportunity to do slightly less work. Rather than trying to stop people from rebelling, why not take away the thing they are rebelling against, especially if doing so saves money, saves time, benefits the environment, supports the aims of the business and leads to higher staff moral?! With 85% of millenials wanting to work remotely for a majority of their day, there is clearly both demand, and a clear case for, remote working.
