The Rise of Home Working

a) Whether you call it working from home, telecommuting or home-working, it's a growing market. Banks, call centres, councils, software companies, law firms, PR agencies: all are increasingly allowing their staff to do it at least part-time. British Telecom, the pioneer of home working in Britain, now has 65,000 flexible workers, of whom 10,000 do not come into the office at all. However, we're still a long way from the dreams of 25 years ago, which imagined offices emptying of everyone who didn't operate a machine or wield a mop.

b) So how do you get on the home-working bandwagon? In some countries, if you have a child under 16, or 18 if they are disabled, in a sense you have a head start. Employers in Britain are legally obliged at least to consider your case if you ask to work flexibly, and that could include working at home for at least part of the week. They must also consider an application if you are caring for a friend or a family member. But even if none of those apply, you are still likely to have a strong case - if you can persuade your company to listen.

c) Not only do home workers cut down on the need for large offices, they are often vastly more productive. American studies show a 30-40% increase. Noel Hodson, a key proponent of home working, suggests that this is at least partly down to the removal of the daily commute: 'What we found was that most of the time saved went back into work. These workers valued their new lifestyle and to protect it they did more work.' Companies that offer flexible working also find it easier to attract staff, and to hang on to them. At British Telecom, at least 97% of women who take maternity leave come back to work afterwards, against a national average of about half that. The downtime, the recruitment, the instruction of each person at a very moderate estimate would be around £10,000. So, not only are they creating a more socially integrated company in line with government guidelines, they're saving 25m-26m on skill losses.

d) And there are bonuses for society too. Home working encourages a more diverse labour force, introducing to the world of work, sometimes for the first time, not just carers but disabled people or those who live in remote locations. Then there's the reduction in pollution and greenhouse gases. So if home working is so great, why aren't we all doing it? 'The issues are human, not technological,' says Peter Thomson of the Telework Association. Tor the past 200 years we have been in an environment where people get together in the same place to work and a manager stands there and watches what they do.' So the last barriers are attitudinal, but it's a myth that someone is in total charge of what people do just because they are all working in the same location. Most managers who are worried about this kind of thing are actually holed up in their offices and rarely interact with their people. Merely turning up is a really poor performance indicator.

e) Mark Thomas runs a PR consultancy whose employees work at home. 'We've come up with measures of performance that are more to do with what they produce than with desk time. This is the way forward,' he says. Some managers are concerned that their home workers might go shopping during the 'working day'. This goes against the idea of flexible working since hours shouldn't matter so long as the required productivity is there. The concern still remains whether some employees will abuse this, but the same technology that makes it possible to escape the office makes it harder to get away from your boss, which is surely true even if you work in an office. It's well known that some managers insist on interrupting their underlings' evenings and weekends with 'urgent' enquiries that could easily wait. So, many of us are already on call 24/7. However, the great thing about technology is that it has an 'off button'. The best employers will not just expect you to use it, but worry if you don't.