Home Sweet Office: a Trend? *

Some years ago, to turn a space at home into an office was nearly impossible for most people. This was merely a fond dream by professionals to have more time withtheir family or avoid traffic jams. However, in the past the technology systems were not mature enough to provide the requisites like the proper equipment. Additionally, corporate culture and labor laws weren’t prepared for such endeavors, and therefore home offices were restricted to a few professionals in very specific areas.

Recently a number of factors, mainly relating to cost, have put the home office back on the agenda. The recent rise in home offices has occurred thanks to the popularization of broadband Internet, programs to share documents, ease of VoIP telephony, reduction in equipment prices, increased auto traffic and violence, and global growth with limited physical space - all these have made the new home office model a solution and provided people with a new way to work. The home office system can now be justified by companies with the  implementation of different management goals. For example, an employee working at home may get paid for results, rather than the number of hours worked. Thus this new model can be profitable for companies by lowering costs and raising profits. Employees who work from home have a better quality of life and more time to enjoy their families. As a result, current research indicates a yield increase of between 20% and 30% in the work output from home offices. Additionally, this type of professional who is choosing to work from home is growing at an amazing 10% a year. Today, one in four Brazilians works from a home office at some time each month.

Nevertheless, for those who think a home office is the solution to avoiding a corporate hierarchy or a way to get rid of unwanted responsibilities, they will be disappointed. Working from home requires strict discipline and professional maturity, since the separation between work and personal life becomes more tenuous. Therefore, the professional needs to create mechanisms to manage and control tasks for himself. For example, spouses and children must be made aware that in the professional’s work, a schedule cannot be altered, even if the family are just a few feet away. But on the other hand, a home office offers the opportunity for professionals to see their children more often and to participate more in their lives, and so the family can become a motivating factor rather than hindering th progress of work.

Work outside the office is still a long way from changing the world. What has happened thus far is not a radical change; however, it does represent the corporate acceptance of another way of working. Following the success of this experimental phase, large companies are now adopting this system and finding it a productive model, full of benefits for the employees and companies, with many stories of successful people and all their productivity accomplished out of the office. It is just one more way to work, not for everybody or for all companies, but the choice is up to you! For more tips about how to manage your home office and be more productive, visit www.curitibaworld.com.

* Article published on Curitiba in English.