Hundreds of thousands of employees will today sample a growing phenomenon that has become ubiquitous to eight million Brits, including creative freelancers – working from home.
Although not entirely new; in fact, BT pioneered flexible work over a decade ago, the practice of working from home may solve the four biggest challenges facing the economy.
That’s not the pitch from a firm selling home-based services, but the view of Sir Digby-Jones, UK skills envoy and former director-general of the CBI, Britain’s ‘voice of business.’
“Our [traditional] working practices come from a bygone era and are actually extremely inefficient and wasteful in terms of time and energy,” Sir Digby told a conference in London this week.
“Changing these practices is an obvious solution to addressing the four main issues facing our economy: competitiveness, the environment, road congestion and quality of life.”
Yesterday, Microsoft was reported to have given the all-clear for 90% of its UK staff to work flexibly, such as from home, by leveraging IT like smart phones, broadband and tablet PCs.
And according to a thinktank commissioned by the software maker, ‘at-home’ workers are more productive, echoing the finding of BT, which has noted worker productivity boosts 20%.
This week also heard calls from deputy Labour leadership candidate Peter Haine that a new body should be set up to enforce workers’ rights, including the right to work flexibly.
Little wonder then that today WorkWise UK, a not-for-profit-group, aims to capitalise on this momentum, by inviting the entire UK workforce to take part in the second annual National Work from Home Day.
But employees, freelancers and start-ups, regardless of whether they try smart working today or in the future, each want to know if working from home is ‘smart’ in the long-term.
Is it financially viable? Can it actually help protect the environment? And as each is concerned with their own bottom line; can working from home actually generate cash savings?
Leonard Tondel is chairman of the Home Business Alliance, the UK’s trade association for home-based business. For him, each of these questions is a no-brainer.
“We heat our buildings almost for free, have our own water supplies, grow most of our own produce, walk, cycle or share a neighbour's car for running errands or leisure-time, and probably spend a grand total of £25 a week on other essential items.
“However, economising is a frame of mind,” Mr Tondel said yesterday from his home-based office in France.
Yet he believes it is frame of mind that fits snugly with the lifestyle of the self-employed, regardless of their location: “As the majority of freelancers work from home, it is in the home where the greatest savings can be made.”
Asked yesterday about which activities put the biggest squeeze on non-employing ‘at-home’ entrepreneurs facing the creative industries, a spokesman for the Environment Agency responded:
“As you identify, energy and paper use are probably the two highest cost\environmental impacts for micro-businesses.
“I would envisage that tracking the costs and usage data of these within such a business should be something that could be achieved, without the financial investment needed to implement a fully blown Environment Accounting System (EAS).”
An EAS, as it is known, is a system which measures the impacts of the natural environment on a company in monetary terms, and is more likely to be used by larger organisations.
However both big businesses and their smaller counterparts, each mindful of budgets, can invest more immediately in an Ecological Accounting System.
This gauges the impact a business has on the environment, and, similar to an EAS, offers a window to make cost savings by spelling out, in physical units, the amount of waste produced against the amount of energy consumed.
The sophistication levels of both accounting systems tend to increase with the size of the business.
Yet ‘at-home’ employees, freelancers and managing directors, armed with their utility bills and figures of their energy use/waste, are as eligible as corporate giants to make hefty savings.
In fact, the Energy Savings Trust told Freelance UK that home-based entrepreneurs who ignore energy efficiency in their place of business will throw away up to £900 over the next three years.
Included in the Trust’s top savings tips is the recommendation to insulate loft and walls – the reason why you turn up the heating, as 50% of heat is lost this way in the average home.
Similarly, the amount of heat loss through windows can be cut by half by installing double glazing – an investment that may take longer to return, but boasts the priceless perk of quieter home working.
Inside the home, treat your hot water tank to three-inch thick jacket, costing only a few pounds, to save around £20 a year, the EST advised.
A further 33% will instantly come off your heating bill by opting for a high-efficiency condensing boiler, with super-efficient versions promising even more savings, instantly and long-term.
In the kitchen, fridge freezers should be treated with care; don’t - open it longer than needed; put hot food into the fridge, defrost it only annually or ignore the state of the door seals.
Around the home, replace ordinary light bulbs for energy saving ones, to yield £9 a year for every bulb you fit. The Trust estimates that if every home used just one eco-friendly bulb, the UK would save £66million every 12 months.
When shopping for electric appliances, prudent home-based workers should keep an eye out for the ‘energy saving recommended’ logo, that is, if they want to replace an old freezer to make a saving of £45 a year.
Overall the best recommendation for cutting costs the ‘green’ way seems to be a modicum of common sense: do the small things like pull curtains at dusk, and fit draft excluders – a move that can save up to £20 annually.
Listing ways to save ‘at-home’ workers money now, and in years to come, may inspire some to take immediate action: the Trust offers a Home Energy Check, which probes to see how much energy, and therefore money, could be saved in your home.
You can sign up for an HEC by filling in details at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk, or obtain a paper form by calling your local Energy Efficiency Advice Centre on 0800 512 012.
If further convincing were needed that action to nurture the environment is imperative, and not just for a home-worker’s monetary or philanthropic benefit, the government yesterday announced that the UK has grown as a global polluter.
The latest figures under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme show the UK emitted over 251million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2006 – a 3.6% increase on the previous year.
The report, from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, suggests that not all the UK’s industry leaders have signed up to the green agenda, despite the returns to be had.
And according to the Home Business Alliance, a half-hearted approach to reducing harmful emissions is not going to save the environment, nor will it generate significant, long-term savings.
Asked about how home-based workers can cut their costs by ‘going green,’ Mr Tondel said, “Unless someone is conscious literally all of the time about saving pennies here and there, it simply won't stick.”
He added: “There’s not much point in running a Toyota Prius if you drive half a mile to pick up half-a-carrier-bag-full of shopping from your local Tesco and boil half a kettle of water for a single cup of tea.”
May 18, 2007
Email this article
Printer friendly page
Previous Page
