7 Great Reasons to Work from Home

Whether you work from home on a permanent or part-time basis, you run your own business or you usually work in an office, there are great reasons for it:

1. You can work flexibly.  You're not tied to the 9-5 and you can plan your day around other non-work activities.

2. You can get up early or work late if you want to.  If you're an early bird or a night owl - start and finish your work day at a time that suits you and work at times when you're at your peak.

3. You don't need to shop when everyone else does - evenings and weekends.

4. You can create your own workspace - especially if you have a home office away from the noise and distractions of an open-plan office.

5. You avoid the congestion, stress and frustration of the daily rush-hour commute.

6. You can get away from the endless office interruptions - the 'have you got a minute' moments, the water cooler discussions.

7. You'll probably get a lot more done without the distractions of ringing phones, email and loud conversations.

You might even find time to exercise and take a lunch break while having a more productive day.

English: Rush hour, Liverpool Street (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Right To Flexible Working

From June this year all employees in the UK (who've been employed for 6 months) can now request flexible working.

Just because they can, doesn't mean they will or that it will suit every employee or business.  Don't panic - this could be great for your business.

Flexible working allows people to work in a different way:

• reduced working hours - either permanently or temporarily
• compressed hours - contracted hours in fewer (longer) days
• park time working
• overtime - to cover peaks in demand
• working from home - full-time, part-time, occasional
• job-share
• different start/end times (flexitime)

You can attract the right people for your business - not everyone wants to work a standard 9-5, five days a week or your business might not need full-time staff.

You'll have a more productive, motivated and loyal workforce if people are able to work hours that fit around their lifestyle or other commitments - childcare, carer, life changes, study etc.

Saves time for travel and commuting which can be quite significant for many people.

Having a flexible working environment in your business could enable you to extend your business hours outside a standard working day by having staff who start early or finish later in the day.  Good for businesses with overseas customers or providers, as they can cover a broader timezone.

Reduces overtime and overhead costs, potentially freeing up office space or reducing the need for expansion.

You build a level of trust with your employees.  Once you've got over the idea they'll be sitting around watching daytime TV, they'll actually get a lot more done if they're working flexibly from home, away from the everyday distractions and interruptions in the office.

What you need to consider:

• additional costs involved
• reorganise, managing the existing workload
• recruiting temporary or agency staff
• skills and potential within the business
• impact on quality and performance

Consider the needs of the business and your staff member before making a decision on whether flexible working is appropriate.

Useful resources:

The Right To Request Flexible Working (ACAS Guide)
Code of Practice (ACAS Guide)
Liberating or isolating - working from home
The benefits of flexible working

flexible (Photo credit: darkmatter)

The benefits of flexible working

Over the past few months I've been limited in the amount of time I spend working, so I've been working flexibly.

It's something you can do too - especially if you're running your own business.  You don't need to stick to a strict 9-5 if it doesn't suit you or your lifestyle.

While it helps to have a routine to your day there are a few options:

• Start and finish early or late to avoid the rush hour traffic.  Avoid spending/wasting extra time stuck in traffic.  Make sure you avoid the trap of starting early and then finishing late, so you end up working a longer day.

• If you need or want to take time out during the day - for children, friends or just for yourself, then adjust your working day.  Start work early or fit a couple of hours into the afternoon.

• Early birds and night owls  - you may be more productive or prefer to work early in the morning or later in the evening but don't do this at the expense of getting enough sleep.

Many companies are now allowing their employees to work more flexibly:

- Flexitime - vary the start and end to your work day.  These can also be staggered within a team to provide extended cover across the day - useful when working with other timezones.

- Compressed working - work the same number of hours but in fewer days i.e. you have one or two longer days but get a full or half day off in the week.

- Shortened hours - you may be able to switch to part-time or job share and work fewer hours.

- Working from home - great for when you focused time away from the usual office distractions or to fit with childcare or carer duties.

Flexibility (Photo credit: Canon in 2D)

Are you feeling guilty?

Many working mums (and dads) can find themselves torn between their work and their home life.

They feel guilty when they're at work that they should be spending time with their children.

They feel guilty when they're with their children that they should be working.

This problem is made worse when you work from home.  Not only are you juggling the responsibilities of being a parent with work in the same environment but you've also got school runs, shopping, cleaning and cooking to distract you.

Be clear - both with yourself and with family.  When you're working you're in work mode, don't get distracted by non-work activity.

When you're in personal time - then leave work in the office, that includes those 'out of hours' phone calls and emails.  Focus on your family and yourself.

This doesn't mean you need to stick to a strictly 9-5 routine, or that you should end up working long hours in order to fit everything in.

Taking a break from work to focus on a few domestic activities is a good way to switch your energy and activity levels.  Set time limits, so you 'quick break' doesn't overrun.

Break up your working day so that you schedule in chunks of work time and time for personal tasks or to spend time with the children.

If you're better planned and organised, with a routine that works for you, you'll feel less guilty.

Get in touch if you need help creating a working schedule and for other tips to reduce your guilt.

Image courtesy of [FrameAngel] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dealing with the challenges of working from home

There are many challenges of working from home - not only trying to run your own business but also creating a work focused environment.

Here are a few ways to deal with them:

• Structure your day, so you know what needs to be done - you stay focused and motivated throughout the day.

• Take breaks when you need to but don't mix personal and work time too much.

• Avoid feeling guilty that you should be working when you're at home or you should be with the children when you're working - by creating clear boundaries between work and home - not just physically but mentally. 
  

• Boundaries are important for your family, friends and neighbours who may take the opportunity or make assumptions that because you're working from home you're 'available'.

• When you're at home and not working, don't get distracted by the computer in the corner or the draw of email.

• Get out and about- working at home can be isolating - don't spend all your time in just those four walls.  Networking is a great way of getting out and meeting other business owners - exchanging ideas or just getting support.

• A change of scenery can help - spend a day a week working somewhere other than your home.  Co-working areas are popping up everywhere - even your local cafe or hotel can make a welcome change away from your usual distractions.

 If you'd like to create your own work from home structure or to find ways of dealing with your own 'working from home' challenges - get in touch.

Office. redux (Photo credit: Louis Abate)

Related articles

• How to Define a Bulletproof Work-at-Home Mindset (dumblittleman.com)
• Liberating or Isolating - working from home? (clareevans.blogspot.com)

Liberating or Isolating - working from home?

I was listening to Woman's Hour while driving to a meeting in town yesterday and caught the discussion about working from home.

Having worked from home myself for several years, I've seen both sides.  Whether you work from home as a freelancer or as an employee.

In some ways it's totally liberating, as you can work in your own environment, create your own boundaries around your time and it allows you to work flexibly.

• If you're working around children and a family it can be a good way to adjust your hours so you work around school runs, nursery and childcare but that also has it's challenges.

• You avoid the hours spent on the daily commute into work - delays in traffic or sitting on cramped, crowded public transport - too hot in summer, freezing cold in winter.

• You're your own boss - you won't get distracted by the other people around you or constant interruptions at your desk.

• You don't have to put up with sandwiches for lunch everyday or unhealthy options or temptations in the staff canteen.

• Because you can work flexibly - take the opportunity of breaks during the day to do the shopping, clean the house, walk the dog, pick up the children but don't use that as an excuse to put off work.

It can be isolating if all you see day in day out are the same four walls and have little interaction during the week.

• Social media has helped to change some of the isolation - at least you can connect with other people during the day and even get some of those 'water cooler' moments.

• You might miss out on the buzz (and distraction) of having other people around you, so make sure you don't become isolated at home.  Get out and about for meetings.  Meet up with friends for lunch or coffee a couple of times a week. 

• Go for a change of scenery every now and then.  Often it's easier to focus and be productive in a different environment - coffee shops, libraries or hotels offer an alternate space in which to work or you could try hot-desking or co-working.

• You can find yourself getting distracted by chores around the house rather than focusing on work.  If that's the case - take a break for a while before getting back to work.

• It can be difficult to draw a line between work and home and there's a temptation to work much longer hours.  It's important to have a cut-off point.

Be realistic about working from home - if you have young children or a spouse who's around all day - don't expect to be able to stick to a strictly 9-5 working routine.  You may only have a few uninterrupted hours a day in which to run your business, so make sure that time counts.

It's not for everyone - what's your experience of working from home?

 (Photo credit: atconc)

Related articles

• Working from home: why I miss the office (guardian.co.uk)
• 4 things not to do when you work from home (cbsnews.com)

Escape From The Home Office

When your home is your office, sometimes you can go just a little stir crazy - especially if the only conversation you have is with your children and if they're under 5 that's probably fairly limited.

Here are a few ways for you to escape and get a breath of fresh air.

Work away from home every now and then.  This can often give you a different perspective and new ideas.

Simply relocate to your nearest cafe for an hour or two or half a day if you can manage it.  Hotels often have quiet lounge areas with or without wifi (rarely free).  My favourite office away from home is a local hotel with decent coffee, handy power outlets and a great view.

Find a hot-desking area.  Several companies offer hot-desking to home workers.  Either on a permanent or temporary basis.  These are either co-working areas, business units aimed at startups and sole traders or even companies with spare meeting room space.

OK - so that's all very well but what about the children?  If they're under school age you can't take them with you or if you do they're likely to run amok, so:

Find a friend with whom you can share childcare.  There are so many businesses being run by mums that you're bound to know someone who is in a similar situation to you.  Swap childcare every now and then, so you both get a chance to either work away from home or to have some child free time.

Alternatively ask a friend or relative (many people are lucky to have obliging grandparents close by who are only too happy to spend time with the grandchildren.

Book the baby-sitter - they're not just there for those evenings out, some are available and happy to help during the day too.

Look at regular childcare - while they may not be in full-time childcare or you can't afford or don't want to use childcare full time, perhaps one day a week or two half days would give you the break you need.

Find a creche - several gyms now have creches onsite so you can leave your little ones there while you exercise but why not spend some of that time either working or having a bit of me time.

Today Is 2011 Census Day

As I filled mine in last week, I noted a few questions where things may well have changed in the last 10 years.

What is the address of your workplace?

How many of us now work from home compared with 10 years ago?  More and more people are either setting up their own businesses or deciding to work from home.  The credit crunch, redundancies and technology have opened up the opportunities for home working.  We're also more likely to have changed jobs a few times in the last 10 years.


How do you usually travel to work?

Travelling to and from work can easily add another 2-4 hours a day to the average worker.  Whether they commute by car or train it adds a significant chunk of time to their working day and eats into their personal life.

Travelling to and from work is an increasing source of stress - rush-hour traffic, reliability of public transport and increasing cost.


How many hours a week do you usually work?

Will this have increased for full-time workers?  People are generally working longer and longer hours or having two jobs to make ends meet.  We work longer hours than most of your European counterparts.

I frequently talk to people who will fall into the '49 or more' category.


These are just three of the areas that impact the people I talk to and work with.  So, how have things changed for you in the last 10 years?

Have you switched workplace - do you now work from home?  How long is your average travel journey to and from work and how many hours do you work in an average week?

Oh and of course, now you can complete it online.  How many of you completed your census online and how many of you left it to the last minute?

Related articles

• Census day to take snapshot of UK (bbc.co.uk)

Snow Chaos - Working From Home

There are days like this when those of us who work from home breath a sigh of relief and carry on working as normal while others struggle through the snow to get to work.

Commuter chaos as people try to get to and from work by bus, train or car.  Thousands stranded on broken trains, blocked roads, taking hours to get back home or being forced to make alternate arrangements.  With some schools closing parents are forced to take the day off to look after their children.

Should more of us work from home?  Should employers allow their employees to work from home rather than waste their time struggling in to work only to go home a couple of  hours later.  How many hours have been wasted in their attempts to get to work.

Home working doesn't suit everyone and not every job is suitable for home working.  Employers are afraid that their employees won't really be working and will skive off, watching day-time TV or not actually working.

Well, there's enough evidence that even when they're in an office - the chances are that a percentage will be ;skiving off'  anyway - internet, social media, email are all great distractions.  It's also likely that of the 8 hours employees spend at work only 60% of that time is being used productively.  Away from the distractions and interruptions of their usual office environment - they're likely to be MORE productive.  It's all about trust.

So what's more productive - having employees spend half their day getting to and from work or actually spending a productive day working at home with the ability to work flexibly and fit the work to suit their hours?

Related articles

• 'Bosses need to trust employees' (bbc.co.uk)
• Snow stopped play? [Annabel Kaye] (ecademy.com)

Working From Home And Being Productive

Working from home is great but it doesn't suit everyone.  You need to be reasonably disciplined when working from home to avoid the temptation of other things around you.  Morning TV suddenly seems enthralling, that DIY project needs finishing, just another cup of coffee before I get started ...

It's less of a problem when you're focused and know where you're going, as you're motivated to get on with it.  Organise your day to enjoy the flexibility of working from home and running your own business while still being productive.

If you thrive on having other people around you, you might find it more difficult and more isolating.  You may be better finding a shared workspace where you can feel as if you're in the office. Hot desking and co-working offer shared working environments with flexibility. Technology can give you the tools to be able to work from anywhere.

For home workers - I often recommend going somewhere else to work.  A change of environment can help to stimulate ideas and productivity.  I recently mentioned I'd travelled up to London for a meeting - I got soooo much work done on the train journey.  I also regularly go to a local hotel, where I can combine a meeting with spending a couple of hours working - away from the phone and email.  Again - it's a great way of getting things done and catching up.

For office based business, I also recommend finding somewhere else to work, so you can get away from the office distractions, find a quiet place to work. This could be a meeting room, an office on another floor, a local coffee shop (although Starbucks tends to be noisy - headphones helps) or even working from home for the day.

A change of environment can be good whether your usual working environment is at home or in an office.

For anyone running their own business you need to take 'time out'.  Setting aside time to catch-up or think more strategically about where you're going and reviewing progress and results.  I'd suggesting booking out at least a half-day a month for that important "me" business time.  Also regularly scheduling times in the week for catch-up, so that you keep on top of things and avoid a backlog - often easier said than done if you're busy, even worse when you're disorganised.

Avoid information overload by dealing with it at source.  Stop it arriving in the first place, manage it when it does and understand that not every single piece of information that passes across your desk or through your  computer needs to be read or actioned.

Plan on working five days, four days or even three days a week and then organise your work accordingly.

Starting A Business In Your Spare Time - Working 5 to 9

Amanda Vlahakis from Truly Ace pointed out this useful document from Enterprise Nation in her blog on the Home Worker Parents network.

Starting your own 5 to 9 business is a great way of achieving a level of independence away from a regular, full-time job but there are things to watch.

You need to be pretty motivated and a self-starter to not only have a full-time job but also run your own part-time business.

Here are a few additional tips:

• Chose something you're passionate about but be wary of turning a hobby into a business, it can take some of the enjoyment out of it.

• Be aware of what you're able to achieve in the time available. Have a clear plan of what you want your business to look like and who your clients and customers are. Is this something that fits within the 5 to 9 timeframe?

• List out all the tasks you need to do and allocate them into the available time. Only pick the things that are going to make a real difference to the business.

• While you'll take longer to get where you want to be than if you were working full-time on your business, you can still make great progress if you work steadily and consistently towards your goal. Little and often.

• Get others involved in your business to spread the load. Depending on the nature of your business you might be able to delegate some of the workload so that your 5 to 9 business is still being worked on while you're working on your 9 - 5 job.

• Don't end up burning the candle at both ends - you'll just end up stressed and exhausted. Planning is key.

• Have a good support network around you - family and friends may not always be the most supportive but get them on your side. You don't necessarily need their approval, just their support.

• Network with like-minded people to create your own support network with business knowledge and skills.

Take a look at Mums In Biz and get help slotting a business into the time you have available - particularly for Mums who want to run a business and work round their family.

Start with a simple One Page Plan - email me for a free copy.

November Newsletter - Don't Be A Lone Ranger

My latest newsletter is just out. This month's main article is about setting up your own support team.

As a nation we’re probably not good at asking for help when we need it. This becomes even more of a problem when you’re very busy or when you work for yourself. There’s a tendency to take on more and more. To a certain extent you don’t have a huge amount of budget to spend on extra staff when you first get started but this doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself.

Just because you work for yourself, doesn’t mean that you’re working on your own. Create your own support team. You’ll already have a few people that are an important part of your ‘team’.

If you want to read the rest of the newsletter, just sign up on my website and you'll receive the latest issue and free Power Time Tips.

August Newsletter - How Much Is Your Time Worth?

My latest newsletter is just out. This month's main article is about looking at how much your time is worth and why this is important. Also news on my book publication.

Whether you work for someone else or work for yourself the amount of time you spend working is worth something. Either your employer pays you for the hours you work or charges your time out at a particular rate or you charge your clients for the work you do. Would you be inclined to fritter it away on things that add no value if you knew what it was costing you? ...

If you want to find out about the importance of your hourly rate, then read the rest of the newsletter, just sign up on my website and you'll receive the latest issue and free Power Time Tips.

Superb Time Management

... or that's what I thought to myself as I cycled into town earlier today in the lovely Spring sunshine while everyone was back at work.

Although I spent all of the Bank Holiday working on my book, I don't tend to do much on Bank Holiday weekends anyway. There's nothing worse than being stuck in a traffic jam - especially on a hot, sunny day and we had a few of those over the weekend ... sunny days AND traffic jams and hoards of people. Everyone else is out and about as they don't have an option if they want to make the most of their weekend. They don't have a choice, whereas I did. I did make one abortive attempt to go into town but as soon as I hit the traffic jam at the end of my road, I turned round and came back as I had less than 30 minutes to get into town and I knew it was going to take a lot longer with all that traffic.

So today, I attended a breakfast meeting first thing this morning, spent a couple of hours working when I got back home, then headed into town on my bike to catch up with a friend for lunch and then see another couple of friends and their new baby. A gloriously sunny day. Cycling meant I got a couple of hours of exercise and avoided the traffic and agro of parking, another bonus with the roadworks taking place along the coast road at the moment making things even worse. Also being a weekday, when most people were back at work, there were a lot less people around on the seafront wandering across the cycle lane. I did have a close miss with a car that decided to do a u-turn in front of me without even looking.

Returned home to head out for my second networking meeting of the day and then a relaxing yoga session. How to mix business and pleasure without having to fit into a conventional 9-5.

Finishing On Time

If you work from home do you find that you’re getting tempted to work extended hours just because your office is in the room next-door or that you end up working sporadically throughout the day or late into the evening?

Just because you work from home doesn't mean that you can't create structure in your day. While you might not want to work 9-5, think about hours that work for you. How many hours a day do you need/want to work? Would you like to have some time off during the day/week? Make sure that you spend time planning what needs to be done each day and that it fits with your business plan and goals. What would be a good start time ... 7.30am, 9.30am? What is a good/reasonable time to finish ... 3.30pm, 6.30pm? If you’re in the habit of working most evenings, aim to finish work a little earlier on at least a couple of evenings a week. Take a half-day off during the week and work a little later one evening if you need to.

Make sure that you plan in breaks too. All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy (or Jill). You won't work as effectively or be as productive if you're working constantly and not taking breaks. Even if you work from home, so the 'office' is never far way, set yourself a cut-off time each evening and make sure you get breaks during the day. Take at least one day off at the weekend. If you're doing what needs to be done then you're working more efficiently, you won't get so tired out or feel guilty when you're not working. After all, why should you?

Think about what you need to get done, plan it in accordingly and don't work for the sake of it. If you want to cut down your hours - look at prioritising what's currently on your list of roles and responsibilities and see what you can change about the way you're currently working.