The Office for National Statistics produces figures which tell us the estimated number of people working in the UK. While there are understandable variations in the monthly totals the figure tends to be around the 29million mark. A number of surveys of working practices and human resource issues have confirmed that the proportion of staff who Work From Home permanently is approximately 3 per cent of the working population. In addition to this there are some staff who Work From Home on occasions. A leading Government survey indicates that seven percent of staff work at home once a week, 5 per cent do so once a month and six per cent do so less than once a month. The same survey suggests that the 3 per cent figure has remained steady since at least 2002 but that the other figures are slowly increasing.
The recent advances in communication technology and the constant expansion of the World Wide Web has caused the dawn of the Internet Business and it would be logical to think that hundreds of Online Jobs are being created on the back of it. While new technology is apparent in workplaces throughout the UK it can often be difficult or expensive to reproduce it at home. The survey which produced the figures above also publishes information on the hardware and technology being operated by those staff who Work From Home from time to time.
The survey points out that around 82 per cent of these staff use a PC, a laptop or a PDA, the new handy device which also act as a mobile phone. Seventy nine per cent of staff need a telephone or mobile phone and 78% utilise a broadband internet connection. 7% are still getting by with a dial-up internet connection. The most significant statistic was that 47 per cent of staff were able to have a remote access to their office network. While 82 per cent of staff have a PC, only forty nine per cent claim to use a printer which would imply that slow progress has been made towards the holy grail of the paperless office. Notwithstanding the advent of all the new technology 7 per cent of staff still require a fax machine. As evidence that not every job needs new technology or hardware, 8% of respondents to the survey said that they used none of the items mentioned above.
The content of each job function is evidently a major issue in deciding whether to enable staff to Work From Home and the survey results would seem to confirm that there are an awful lot more jobs that entail occasional working from home than entail it on a full time basis. If the Internet Business is inclined to provide all of its staff with the essential equipment to Work From Home, including remote access to its office network, then they can make all of their positions Online Jobs and make savings on the leasing of office space. However the survey also reveals the fact that only 9% of those who Work From Home occasionally and 3 per cent of those who have never worked at home are sure that they could do all of their Work From Home.
To summarise, technology can help to enable staff to Work From Home but the chance of success is very task-specific and the statistics would suggest that any move away from the traditional office environment will be a trickle not a flood.
