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Is it time to put the brakes on remote working?

Paul Colgan

by Paul Colgan

18 Oct 08:45am

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Filed under: Office, Technology, Telecommunications, Work, Work Life Balance

45 comments

In another study from the University of Obvious Research Findings, research out today finds people are increasingly working away from the office.

The scene in a typical Australian home. Pic: File

And it’s perhaps it’s even more predictable given that the survey was commissioned by Telstra. Surprise! Telecommunications technology is all the rage says a study - from a telecommunications technology company.

Although once you get past saying “well, duh” and grab your pinch of salt, some details in the findings might just twitch your eyebrow. It says a quarter of Australian workers are spending five hours working outside of the workplace each week, and 15 per cent are doing it 10 hours a week. These are pretty significant numbers and signal a real shift in the nature of Australian work. The question is whether a society of always-on workers is a Good Thing.

Telstra spokesperson Rebekah O’Flaherty said: “Our research found the increase in mobile working has actually allowed people to spend more time with their family and friends.”

Pop the champers, right? Well yes, except if during that time you’re responding to meeting requests and answering emails on a mobile device while those family members or and friends are telling you how they’ve just discovered they’ve got some terrible disease.

Other surveys not commissioned by telecommunications companies consistently show Australians already work some of the longest hours in the western world.

The Australian Work and Life Index 2010, published by the Centre for Work and Life at the University of South Australia, shows 60 per cent of women and one in two men feel constantly time-pressured. It also found that “the majority of working Australians say that work – for all its benefits – has negative effects on the rest of life, creating strain and restricting time they have for themselves, families and friends, and communities.”

If technology – for all its benefits, too – restricts the amount of time you can be away from the virtual desk, what impact is that going to have on this trend of work creeping its way into more hours of the day?

Reporting on the survey this morning the Courier Mail spoke to lawyer Jess Heading who says she uses her commuting time to deal with emails.

This is constructive and I suspect increasingly common. Look around you on a train carriage at peak hour. But what is the real value if the trade-off is against time spent reading an excellent, mind-expanding book?

Let me be clear that I think working remotely can be a huge benefit to workers – giving them more time with family and friends – and to employers, by having more productive staff.

Working remotely can also mean being in an environment devoid of productivity-sapping distractions and the death-spiral of meetings that are regular complaints of office workers.

The figures in the Telstra survey, if they’re to be believed, make it look like the future of always-on workers is starting to become a reality. And it doesn’t have to be big firms in tall buildings - small business, too, can get huge benefits from having staff out on the road and handling correspondence or doing paperwork on the fly.

As the technology improves and more and more companies make it an option for their workers, it’s worth stopping to think about how to really realise the potential of remote access and avoid turning the entire world into a virtual office where people have their heads stuck in their work all the time.

What do you think?

Most commented

45 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • M says:

      09:03am | 19/10/10

      I’d love to work from home.

      But working from home is very different to being at your employers beck and call 24/7. When I’m off the clock I’m off the clock! I don’t get paid overtime so I don’t work it. That’s the way it is… and that’s the way it should be. I have too many things I want to do to spend all day working.

      Reply

    • Michael Farnbach says:

      04:37am | 19/10/10

      It really saddens me to see the way that Australia has gone with its insane ‘work till you drop with no compensation’ culture. I was an Aussie that lived in Stockholm, Sweden and worked as a graphic designer. I was in a company for 1 year, and only 2 times was I required to work overtime. On those two occasions I got time-in-lieu. In contrast, in Australia, I was often made to work back at least 1 hour a day, and for NO overtime pay or time-in-lieu. Why is this legal in Australia? why doesn’t the Federal Labor Party have a policy of making people working overtime for no compensation illegal, as it is in most European countries? It has been shown that forcing people to work longer hours, especially for no compensation, causes more damage than it does good; people get burnt out, marriages collapse and work output is reduced to to stress and fatigue.

      It is a national shame, and I for one am glad I won’t be returning to Australia to live for this reason alone. It’s a pity, cause I love my country, but can’t abide by the unfair work habits that are imposed by bosses and the effects it has on the quality of myself and my partner’s life.

      Reply

    • Timmuh says:

      03:47pm | 18/10/10

      It would be great if the remote work was instead of on-site work. But, for most people, it isn’t. Its unpaid remote work, on top the unpaid above hours on-site work. A 38 hour pay week is so often 50 hours at the office, and another 5-10 at home. I know plenty who work from home over and above the office hours, and only two who have ever been able to work from home in place of office hours.

      Reply

    • Blackadder says:

      02:16pm | 18/10/10

      With a 3hr daily commute, I appreciated the opportunity to work from home one day a week. I had an office in a separate part of the house, my own computer with fast connection, and with a young daughter could down tools late afternoon and spend some time with her. My wife was respectful and only ever knocked on the door to get me out for a coffee or lunch. I did more work at home than in the office, given the reduced interruptions.

      The privaledge was then removed by those that abused it - I respected it, but there were others in the office that, when you rang them, were in all manner of shops and shopping centres, often with relatives.

      In moderation, with the appropriate technology, it is great, and it’s a great balance to retain your sanity with work/life balance.

      Unfortunately, there are too many disrespectful idiots out there that ruin it for others.

      Reply

    • mezz says:

      01:49pm | 18/10/10

      Utilities are becoming to expensive to run a home office.

      Reply

    • Ned says:

      01:30pm | 18/10/10

      I work from home a couple of days a week, then commute the other days. I like being able to sleep in and miss the traffic, then sit down at my desk wearing my old and daggies with a coffee at hand.
      It’s important to set up rules though, my work knows when I’m working, but once I’m done for the day then that’s it, disconnect and no more thinking about work til tomorrow.

      Reply

    • Grant says:

      01:25pm | 18/10/10

      I used to be a software developer and I found working from home a mixed bag.  There is still no substitute for being at the office if your work involves any sort of interaction.  In some ways I found working at home harder than working at the office as you have fewer distractions and work harder but at the same time, I found myself always on the phone communicating rather than face to face. The other issue is the blurring between leisure and work time. 

      The ability to work at home can mean that you are always available and this can be a big issue. The other issue is the amount of hours that people work. Working from home can be an alternative to going into work on the weekend. for instance.  I mean if rather than saying ‘wow, I can work from home on Saturday’ maybe you should be saying to yourself ‘WTF’.

      Reply

    • Pauline says:

      01:21pm | 18/10/10

      There are two separate issues here - one, being “on” and available all the time, with which I (like most others here) wholeheartedly disagree.

      The other - the opportunity to work from a non-office or non-CBD location should you choose - is a great idea, and should be embraced.  There are many ways to keep up the social interaction - you’re right, we do need it - by having regular meetings within the office, or having coffee or lunch out of your home every day.  If you visit http://www.flyingsolo.com.au (a site for sole entrepreneurs) they have many tips to help avoid that.

      Also correct is that some people cannot work from home - either they don’t have the discipline or they prefer being in a structured environment.  That’s their choice.  However if you want training in how to structure your day to take advantage of no commuting and a quieter environment, that is also available and should be offered.  There are, of course, those (very) few who would use the opportunity to skive off, and really, they’d be weeded out quite quickly.

      The only problems that training or choice cannot overcome are bosses who still have 150-year-old management ethos (ie, if I can’t see you, you can’t possibly be working) and resentment from those whose job cannot be located elsewhere.  Although a significantly less crowded trip in and out of work may help alleviate that.  grin 

      My job is able to be done from home, I have the (proven) discipline and I’d truly love to.  Unfortunately, the boss “isn’t a fan of telecommuting” so tough bikkies.  90 minutes into the CBD, 90 minutes home.  Grumpy bad attitude at both ends of the day.  Yay!!  Makes me *so* much more productive…

      Oh, and I loved Oatmeal.  Thanks for the link.  grin

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      01:20pm | 18/10/10

      It’s good in the sense that some sad cases like myself get good ideas in the middle of the night and do my work remotely..

      There is a lot of environmental benefits to this as well. Less reliant on cars and public transport.. This is where the NBN will pay for itself many times over…

      We’ve done little experiments here in the past with virtual office.. I like the idea, the technology has to get better though…

      Reply

    • loxy says:

      01:17pm | 18/10/10

      Paul the issue is not remote working but rather employers’ expectations. If remote working was only used for its intended purpose i.e. to allow employees greater flexibility and more work/home life balance then there would be no problems. Instead, employers are abusing it to steal even more time from their employees.

      Reply

    • Blondie says:

      12:52pm | 18/10/10

      Offices these day are noisy, open plan, cramped little workstations, I can’t hear myself think. I have the flexibility to work from my spacious and quiet home office when I choose without people trying to have noisy meetings behindme. In fact, I work from home in the morning and leave later to avoid traffic! I am much less stressed!

      Reply

    • Brett says:

      12:13pm | 18/10/10

      People, does the phrase ‘A well balanced diet’ ring a bell? Whilst I agree with most of these comments, they are somewhat extreme, it seems like the majority of people think it is a binary choice, it is not. Working from remotely should be an option your employer makes available to you and is semi-flexible, let’s say 1 to 2 days per fortnight. As a professional, you should be trusted to work remotely effectively and efficiently.

      I hope that more employers can place this sort of framework around their workforce, it promotes a healthy work/life balance & enhances productivity and job satisfaction.

      Reply

    • Amy says:

      02:59pm | 18/10/10

      Totally agree Brett - I think this is something that could be handled as a mixed approach. 
      As someone mentioned earlier, working from home has huge environmental benefits (less cars = less pollution) and frees up the overcrowded roads that exist in most CBDs, but there are many office positions that would still require at least some time in the office - for meetings, collaboration on projects etc.  Additionally, not everyone is able to focus at home without being distracted and many people miss social interaction and get lonely. 
      So why not something mid-way between the two options? 
      People could work in the office for some days as required, and when they’re not required they could work from home, OR in purpose-designed offices in their local area.  This probably sounds a little utopian, but imagine if we had small multi-use offices spread around suburban areas that were close enough for most people to walk/cycle to, that had computer, internet, fax and phone services, so that people could spend their working days closer to home.  No huge commute before and after work, you’re closer to home if you need to leave urgently for a sick child or other emergency of that kind etc.  Employers could still have all the connectivity they need to keep in touch with staff, and employees would benefit from being able to do their jobs in a more convenient location.  They’d still meet people and engage in social activities, because they’d be surrounded by other people.  Like I said, a utopian idea, but maybe, with people becoming more concerned about reducing carbon emissions etc, this might be something we’ll start seeing in years to come.

    • Sludger says:

      12:09pm | 18/10/10

      I worked from home for nearly 3 years.  Now I have a one and a half hour commute each way.  There were many advantages to work from home, but also many for going in the office - the biggest being interaction.  My company had no work from home policy.  However, I approached my CEO and we discussed the merits etc and now I spend each Thursday working from home.  It is a great break and recharges me.  It also makes me feel quite valued.  My CEO loves it too as I am actually far more productive (gotta love doing design work in Mickey Mouse pyjamas).  The downside is the office just think I am sick every Thursday as there would be a lot of resentment.  Anyway, I think a balance of office / home is great.

      Reply

    • Mick says:

      11:58am | 18/10/10

      I started working from home almost exclusively about a year ago as my wife came into ill health.

      I love it. Not only can I take care of my wife, but I can also maintain full time work. It has meant I traded in my 45 minute train ride in the morning for a 15 min walk with the dog. I start early, take an extended lunch to spend time with my wife. If she has to attend a doctor’s appointment, I grab my laptop and my mobile and keep working on whatever it is I am doing in the car while she consults the doctor. Come 5:30 - 6pm, I shut the lid on the computer and my day is done.

      The only trick I have found is to put extra effort into phoning people back rather than emailing. It can be very easy to develop email only relationships with colleagues, which can result in problems taking longer to solve than they need to.

      Overall I and my employer are very happy with the arrangement, for me it means I am able to maintain a reasonable income, which helps to pay the various medical expenses and for my employer it means a reliable staff member with a substantial amount of corporate knowledge has not walked out of the business.

      Full of Win all round.

      Reply

    • Doug Rhodes says:

      11:34am | 18/10/10

      One thing said about retirees is that they miss the interaction of fellow workers most when they leave the workforce. Working alone can be good for awhile,but when you start talking to yourself and you realize that you.re getting lonely ,you might just crave some of the social face to face interaction found amongst fellow employees. So surely it is best to combine the traditional and the modern way,a few days on, a few days off.

      Reply

    • TheRealDave says:

      11:17am | 18/10/10

      Remote working is the best thing since sliced bread. I love taking days off as needed and ‘work from home’. Fantastic if one of the kids are sick or appointments have been booked for the doctors, tradies etc. Good for productivity as well. If I have proposals or some network designs to do I get far more work done at home than I could at work with the constant interruptions.

      Being an IT Pro I guess I am far more au fait with a lot more remote access scenario’s, video conferencing, instant messaging etc so it compliments my work requirements. I find it very handy to be able to remotely access a clients server via my phone to troubleshoot issues no matter where I am. The clients like it and pay a premium for that kind of always there support. The trick is to know when to turn your phone off. Experience is the biggest factor there. If you leave it on all the time its your own fault if you are tired/overworked/stressed etc. People, especially the younger Gen Y monkeys, need to stand up for themselves if their boss is being an arsehole with unreasonable work time demands. I guess its far easier for older people who’ve been in the work force a lot longer to turn off their phones at 5pm and say ‘see you tomorrow’.

      One more thing, I like answering my emails, booking appointments etc while in the car or before I head into work. It means I can walk into the office and jump straight into the day or grab a coffee and walk around having a chat to everyone, especially on a Monday morning. Monday mornings suck at the best of times. If I can spend 20 minutes on Sunday night answering a couple of emails or adding a few appointments to my Outlook calendar then it makes Monday mornings just that little bit more tolerable.

      Its not all downside - embrace it wink

      Reply

    • Ryan says:

      10:17am | 18/10/10

      “Working from home” or “remote working” is something that should be embraced and encouraged by both federal and state governments for two major reasons.
      1. Working from home means less cars on the road which means less pollution and better for the environment.
      2. Working from home means less cars on the already overstretched and completely inadequate infrastructure we have here in Australia today due to successive incompetent Labor state governments.

      Any government who is “fair dinkum” about the environment will put business tax incentives to get companies to encourage workers who can work from home to do so for everyone’s sake.. Then again, when has this government EVER been “fair dinkum” about anything. Election promises.. what election promises.

      Reply

    • Ryan says:

      11:55am | 18/10/10

      @Shane: hardly political, the state of our roads is a matter of FACT.

    • Shane says:

      11:19am | 18/10/10

      Way to turn a totally apolitical piece into a platform to spout your political views.

    • Eagles hater says:

      10:15am | 18/10/10

      If Optus (our companys preferred remote access provider) actually provided a decent service, then I’d probably work from home more often.  As it stands, it takes 10 minutes to download a 3kb email so its better for me to be in the office most days.

      Reply

    • TheRealDave says:

      11:08am | 18/10/10

      If only there was some kind of faster broadband services in the pipeline, so to speak….

    • Peter Oataway, Hay, NSW says:

      10:12am | 18/10/10

      Same type of fingerprint technology that is coming up for the poker machines could likely be used to ensure your doing the work and not just sub-contracting your neighbour to do it. It makes a lot of sense to go down this path and decentralize our population away from the overpopulated cities

      Reply

    • Bundy says:

      10:08am | 18/10/10

      Reasons to work from home: Spending 2.5 hours less commuting a day, not having to dress in a way not necessary to do my work just to make one conservative boss happy, being able to interact with the family instead of coming home at 8:30pm tired and cranky only to have to immediately shove the kids off to bed.  In most cases the only reason for an office presence is so some boss can feel they are keeping an eye on you and are maintaining their little empire, regardless of your work performance.  The only times I want to come in to the office is to go out to the shops or do an errand at lunch time, occasionally its just for a change of scene.

      My job can be done at any hour - so I can take a relaxed start to the day and work through as needed.  As for productivity, I am just as distracted and probably more lethargic in the office.

      Bring on the NBN.  The only drawback to working from home is my home network is too slow for some tasks.

      Reply

    • majority says:

      09:55am | 18/10/10

      I would like the flexibility to work from home occasionally, sick child, tradesman coming around, home emergency etc. Surprisingly, there are some large Australian companies that don’t allow it at all, even some large Telecommunications companies.

      Reply

    • A Bob says:

      09:51am | 18/10/10

      I work in a company that has had remote working in place for ages. There is also a strong culture of protecting the work-life balance. We have hot desks so people can move around within the organisation too. I rotate between a number of buildings.

      I like face-to-face contact so I arrange to be in the office on days with lots of meetings. On work-from-home days it’s great. I can throw clothes in the machine and generally overlap chores with work.

      On one occasion when family problems came up I was able to work from interstate while things got sorted out.

      Nobody gets pedantic about when we are in or out of the office so long as the work gets done. Very little rorting goes on, in fact people are inclined to put in extra when needed. My phone gets turned off when I knock off and nobody minds.

      Best job ever. When done properly, everybody wins.

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      09:22am | 18/10/10

      I like remote working. I find my brain works better at creative tasks between the hours of 9pm and 3am, so being able to say to my boss I’m going to go home at lunch time and send him something in the early hours of the next morning is great.

      Before I had a Blackberry, my day started at 6am and I was in the office by 7:30am. Now my day still starts at 6am, but I’ve got time to have a proper breakfast and to relax. If work needs me, I’m there, but I’m not strung out on my fourth cup of coffee with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth - I’m relaxed on my couch watching iCarly. You have any idea how much better your day is when you watch iCarly in the morning? It puts whatever crisis happens during the day into perspective - I think my life is hard, imagine how hard it is for a 17 year old girl to pretend to be 12 while juggling the competing demands of a multi million dollar children’s television franchise.

      Reply

    • Mr Pod says:

      10:06am | 18/10/10

      @Zeta you can’t possibly work, you spend all your time blogging, if you do it must be a cushy public service job.

    • Joolz says:

      09:16am | 18/10/10

      Then there is the group of us who get an ABN and do part-time casual work in our own homes and get paid to do it when we want, rather than pulling on pantyhose, doing the commute and punching a timeclock.

      There’s a small army of former corporate types who’ve applied their trade to the self-employed world. I don’t have the courage to start my own business, so the way I work is really working for me.

      Were these figures mixing their work types? Did they only look at work from home outside of the office? or do they also include people like me who do everything from home?

      Now if you’ll excuse me, the office refurbishment is underway and I must apply a second coat of paint to the window sills.

      Reply

    • HappyCynic says:

      08:56am | 18/10/10

      I wouldn’t mind working from home but I’m also not so crazy as to check e-mails or accept meeting requests or anything dumb like that when I shouldn’t be working.  I’d only ever work during office hours.

      Same goes for work mobiles, I turn it off outside of the hours between 8:30am and 5pm, this annoyed my manager a bit at first until I told her directly that there is no way in hell I’m working outside my normal hours unless absolutely necessary and nothing is so earth-shatteringly important that it can’t wait ‘til the next working day.

      She didn’t have a valid argument against it, so she just accepted it wink

      Same thing goes for unpaid overtime, there’s no excuse for it unless you’re useless, incompetent and lazy except on the very, very rarest of occasions (I’ve done maybe half a dozen hours in the last 3 and a half years) and any manager who tries to force me to work extra hours gets told that.  It shuts them up completely and they can’t get rid of you either because you just being professional and working hard smile

      Reply

    • Bernadette says:

      01:25pm | 20/10/10

      Working from home is what you have described, it is as simple as at 7 O’clock work comes first home comes second then 8 hours later switch back to home comes first and work second.

    • fairsfair says:

      08:49am | 18/10/10

      I think it is crap.

      On one hand you breed a bunch of people so overworked and overstimulated that when they have down time all they can think about is work. Their should be complete seperation from work and home (unless you have a vested personal interest in your work). If you are an employee - take a break. If you are an employer, stop forcing people to work 23 hours a day. The sounds of laptops and smarphones tippety tip typing all the way to work on the train is majorly annoying. I see QR in Brisbane have even introduced quiet carriages to get away from this - so clearly people are jack of listening in on Barry arranging his 1:00pm with Philip.

      On the other hand - in the event that people are allowed to work from home solely on particular days - breeds resentment amongst other employees. My previous employer had one employee working 400km away on a week in office week out of office schedule. It was not conducive to a productive workforce or an overly social one.

      If the right balance could ever be met (and I am sure some people have it out there) my tune might change. But my personal experiences with it are not positive, particular in terms of the work/life balance.

      Reply

    • Jason Stackhouse says:

      08:40am | 18/10/10

      I find ‘remote working’ means we have less personal time - from my experience I still spend 40-45 hrs a week in the office and any remote working is done on top of my normal working week.  All this on top of having to make your self available to drop everything and go to work for emergency call out’s (meaning no drinks at the pub, no camping trip) for an extra $15 per day?

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      08:34am | 18/10/10

      Aren’t you conflating two separate things here? There is a difference between organised, supported work-from-home arrangements whereby employees replace coming into the office with working remotely from home and someone who doesn’t switch off their blackberry.

      Both of these are trends, but you always here about the former (real work from home) being something on the cusp of becoming commonplace (on the cusp for about the last decade!). The latter, the crackberry phenomenon, is probably more valid.

      Reply

    • Bernadette says:

      01:19pm | 20/10/10

      I agree completely, I work from home, I start at a set time and finish at a set time, I work specific shifts each week and when I finish I turn my equipment off. I used to work 6 night shifts a fortnight and was very time poor. Now I work 8 night shifts a fortnight and seem to have plenty of time on my hands. The hours you spend working out of home aren’t the only time work takes, yes there is the commute, then there is the time spent preparing for work, getting the clothes, washing the clothes, primping yourself to look the part, Every minute that I used to spend doing anything work related outside paid hours is now gone and furthermore during my scheduled breaks I get little bits of housework done, pay my bills by phone or internet. While I am working I get my washing folded, depending on how busy it is in a shift I have colored my hair, caught up on TV shows, played the Wii Fit, caught up on reading, study, knitting, I eat and drink what I want when I want. The fact that I get some of the around the house stuff done during my shift means even more time to my self or with my family.
      That is working from home! Keeping everything on and continuing to work after your shift and out of paid hours is not working from home that is working for free.

    • Nigel Catchlove says:

      08:17am | 18/10/10

      While a little different to ‘remote working’, I’ve bee working from a home office for the past two years as a consultant.  I’m about to give it the flick and get back into the full-time office environment because working from home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  I love the flexibility and don’t miss the commute one bit but what I do miss is the social aspects of work.  I can go a day without talking to anyone or several days with having only email contact with clients.  The social aspects of work are, in my view, more important than many people realise and I’m not talking about endless boozy lunches, I’m just talking about that 30 second person-to-person engagement at the photocopier.

      Remote workers can miss out on more than they realise, and social isolation is the key element.  We spend enough time as a society watching TV and generally being anti-social; we have to be wary about encouraging more isolation from the community.

      Reply

    • MichaelZ says:

      05:48pm | 18/10/10

      This has been my experience - for someone who isn’t very sociable and doesn’t generally meet people outside of work the isolation can be quite extreme.  I worked for about 4 years for a US startup from home in OZ, and then after a break working in an office for 3 years i’m now doing it again for local work.  Most of that time I’ve lived alone too, and sometimes go a week without leaving the house/yard (without the commute you have a lot of time to work out how to cook and garden wink - although toward the end of the US job I was more disciplined about getting out of the house more often.

      The lack of commute is pretty good, and being in software engineering being able to work long uninterrupted stretches without a knock-off time can be great for productivity.  So it can be pretty good if the work is interesting.  But it definitely leaves it’s mark on you.

    • fairsfair says:

      11:47am | 18/10/10

      Holy, I was only agreeing with Nigel in terms of the social aspects of the work environment being necessary in our day to day lives. Way to pounce on only one line of a point. Let me change it to “breakdown” - is that better? Seeing as though everyone is having one of those these days anyway.

      If we were forced to remove ourselves from the work environment there would be social implicatons for many people. Nigel can attest to that - he misses it. Luckily he has the option to return - some people don’t. Just like some people would love the flexibility to work from home - but can’t get it.

    • Chris says:

      11:41am | 18/10/10

      Many years ago (say 10 - 15) the talk was all about the paperless office and of employees working increasingly from home.  Failed miserably because - as you point out Nigel - people missed the social aspects of working in an office environment.  I have worked from home as a consultant for some 17 years and have had to be self disciplined to make it work. But my line of work means I am in regular contact with people most days.  Don’t underestimate the need for contact - we are, after all, social animals.

    • TheRealDave says:

      11:05am | 18/10/10

      Jesus! Now the NBN is going to lead to more suicides. Fair dinkum, what rot.

    • fairsfair says:

      10:41am | 18/10/10

      RIch I just meant in extreme examples and I think it would happen if we all just got up, had a shower and a coffee and then went straight to the computer to work. Technological sweatshop if you will.

      I think it does work at the moment - becuase not everyone is doing it.  it suits some people down to the ground, but is not always done as well as you have described. If the majority of people start working from home, there will be problems.

      Just had a group hug in the tearoom - I’m set wink

    • Rich says:

      10:15am | 18/10/10

      @fairsfair

      “There is no point having a worker churning out the work, but then suiciding because there was noone there to ask they looked so down today? I know this is an extreme example, but I see it happening.”

      Wow, cup half empty?

      I’ve teleworked in a number of roles in a number of different ways for the best part of a decade. Teleworking doesn’t always mean ‘working from home’.

      For example, I worked for a European company remotely from an Australian office for several years. No one I sat with in the office had anything to do with my role or my projects, but we still has some social interaction. (My manager and stakeholders were all overseas).

      These days I have a role which requires a large amount of international travel, remote working keeps me off an aeroplane and with my family and friends. It’s a major win for me.

      With the birth of a my first son, I plan to spend even more time at home - even though there is a local office I can sit in for the social interaction - spending precious time with my wife and newborn son is more rewarding than I can express.

      Remote working leads to suicide? Geez. Someone needs a hug.

    • fairsfair says:

      08:59am | 18/10/10

      Good point Nige. This is one of my concerns with the NBN and all of the ultimate prescribed benefits of it all. Like biochemist Alan working for a Melbourne company via Innisfail. What is the point in all of us being so isolated from each other in the name of productivity and access? There is no point having a worker churning out the work, but then suiciding because there was noone there to ask they looked so down today? I know this is an extreme example, but I see it happening.

      Workmates help you through problems because of their impartiality. This is only available when you bump into them while making coffee, alone in the office with a couple of people. They notice changes in your behaviour and with comments like “whats up your bum today” allow you to offload some of your problems. You can’t really skype Jemima and book in that 10:00am meeting and say by the way I feel a bit depressed today, oh, am I on speaker phone?

      The fact that we as humans, don’t generally ask for help - means that we need social interaction (even if it is unwanted - ie going to work day in day out) to cope.

    • dancan says:

      08:08am | 18/10/10

      I wish I could work remotely.  Working in an office environment drives me nuts, I wouldn’t care if I had to work an extra couple of hours per day if it meant not coming into the city, office and all the rest of it.

      Reply
 
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