Working Where We Live

Those of us who grew up during the ’50s and ’60s probably shared a similar day-to-day reality with the middle-class characters we watched on TV sitcoms. With the exception of Ozzie Nelson — who never seemed to have a real job — the family breadwinners got up every weekday, left to go to work and arrived back home about eight hours later. Whether they went to the office, the factory, the store or the job site, work was something that took place somewhere other than their primary residences.

That was then. Today, physical location is largely irrelevant when it comes to working. Fueled by iPads, BlackBerrys, globalization, rising energy concerns and economic pressures, telecommuting is dramatically altering not just the way people work but also where they do it.

Telecommuting, or substituting home-to-work commuting with the option to work at home for all or part of an employee’s assignment, means trading rush-hour traffic for a stroll down the hallway and putting in your time on your own terms instead of physically punching the time clock.

Estimates of how many people telecommute and how often they do it vary widely. According to a report from the University of Oregon, about 6 percent of the American workforce — more than 8 million workers — telecommute to company jobs from their homes on either a part-time or full-time basis, and that number is increasing. By some estimates, a full 30 percent of the workforce will be telecommuting by 2020.

Even more remarkable, nearly 40 percent of Americans could work from home if given the opportunity, according to surveys compiled by the Telework Research Network (TRN). In its 2009 report, “Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work,” the Families and Work Institute stated 87 percent of employees believe job flexibility would be “extremely” or “very important” in deciding whether to take a new job.

This fundamental shift will continue to gain momentum. Younger generations expect and demand a higher degree of flexibility in how, when and where they work. Smart corporate leaders recognize telecommuting as a fertile opportunity — if not a competitive imperative — to improve productivity, drive innovation, expand the universe of available talent, increase worker retention and cut costs.