Question: Help! I work from home and want a supportive office chair that doesn’t look like an exoskeleton or gym ball. Any options?
Ask the Strategist: The Best Home-Office Chair
May 19, 2017 Working from home and the future of work. How quaint
In 1962, a professor of communication studies called Everett Rogers came up with the principle we call diffusion of innovation. It’s a familiar enough notion, widely taught and works by plotting the adoption of new ideas and products over time as a bell curve, before categorising groups of people along its length as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. It’s a principle bound up with human capital theory and so its influence has endured for over 50 years, albeit in a form compressed by the accelerated proliferation of ideas. It may be useful, but it lacks a third dimension in the modern era. That is, a way of describing the numbers of people who are in one category but think they are in another.
Employee freedom and self-regulation is the key to successful home working
The lazy assumption that employees who work from home are invariably shirking work is gradually dissipating, as flexible working becomes part of accepted working practice. Now new research suggests that to really get the best from their home workers, employers need to treat them as responsible adults who can actually be trusted. A new study, conducted by Nick van der Meulen of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) has revealed that job performance in working from home is driven by employee self-regulation and decision-making freedom rather than previous beliefs that it was achieved through managerial or peer control. In fact, any suggestion of shirking is erased by the evidence of a positive relationship between the extent of telework and number of hours worked. On average, full-time teleworkers perform just as well as those who do no telework at all — even under conditions of infrequent communication with the manager, low peer performance monitoring, and no outcome reward systems.
Remote workers are NOT watching daytime TV in their pajamas
Want to make employees work better together? Let them work separately, from home.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but employees are apt to work more efficiently and collaboratively when operating remotely, a new study released Tuesday by video and voice collaboration technology company Polycom, Inc. and Human Resources executive network and research firm Future Workplace found. Modern employees are expressing a growing need for flexible workplaces, the survey of more than 24,000 workers concluded. Some 62% of people are already taking advantage of flexible working practices and 98% say “anywhere working” has a positive impact on productivity.
Ariake Collection by Legnatec and Hirata Chair
Ariake Collection is a series of minimal furniture created by a joint venture between Legnatec and Hirata Chair, two factories from the furniture-producing town of Morodomi in Saga prefecture, Japan. Ariake means “morning moon” or “daybreak” in Japanese, and symbolizes a new chapter for Legnatec and Hirata Chair, two leading companies in a twon consisting of more than thirty furniture factories.
Why So Many Workers Prefer Their Remote Colleagues To The Ones In Their Office
Last year, Ann Herrmann, who heads up a talent management firm, made her entire workforce remote. They now rely on a combination of videoconferencing tools and chat platforms, with an annual face-to-face retreat. So far, she says, she’s “actually gotten to know my employees better in the process of going 100% virtual.”
Could Working Remotely Be As Bad For Your Health As Smoking?
As people grow more isolated in their work, which comprises more than half of most people’s day, that is in many cases a missed opportunity to interact. Over time I think we will see negative effects of working remotely, working alone, working digitally, on people’s health.
IBM, remote-work pioneer, is calling thousands of employees back to the office
Less than a year into her tenure as IBM’s chief marketing officer, Michelle Peluso prepared to make an announcement that she knew would excite some of her 5,500 new employees, but also, inevitably, inspire resignation notices from others. She had already briefed managers and the leaders of small teams on the news, which had been set in motion before her arrival in September. The rumor mill had already informed most other employees. All that was left to do was to make it official. “It’s time for Act II: WINNING!” read the subject line of Peluso’s blog post on the company intranet.
Majority of people who routinely work from home don’t do so ergonomically
Over two thirds of people take work home with them from the office at least once a week, but the majority of these could be risking their health by using inappropriate office set ups, a new survey claims. Retailer Furniture123.co.uk has revealed that while 41 percent take work home with them at least once per week, the vast majority do not do so from a desk set up as just one in three (34 percent) of those who work from home claim to do their work at a desk within their home.
Global survey confirms the need for flexible working in order for businesses to thrive
Productivity and teamwork are both significantly improved when employees can choose where they work, a global survey of on global flexible working trends claims. The survey commissioned by Polycom, Inc. a global leader in enabling organizations new levels of teamwork, efficiency and productivity by unleashing the power of human collaboration. The survey of over 24,000 people found that 62 percent of the global working population now take advantage of flexible working practices. Nearly all respondents (98 percent) state that flexible working has a positive impact on productivity. Although many remain concerned that their absence from the office may have a negative effect on their careers, they are drawn to flexible working to increase their productivity, achieve a better work life balance and avoid the problem of commuting.
How Remote Work Is Changing And What It Means For Your Future
Remote work has been a small part of the employment landscape throughout history. Thanks to the internet, those opportunities are now abundant, spurring many new companies to successfully connect solopreneurs to work projects. Some provide a general marketplace and others focus on specific disciplines; 99designs, for example, matches design projects with graphic designers. Even LinkedIn got in on the act last year with ProFinder – which is designed to link freelancers with leads.
But the new trend that’s exciting me and is growing exponentially is the area of remote work that’s not for freelancers; it’s for employees. There’s no arguing that the 9-to-5, 40-hour work week, with your entire team located near you, is gone. And it’s not coming back. Today, it is more likely that you work on a team where some or even all of your colleagues work remotely.
Sorry, Working From Home Isn't the Future of Job Flexibility
Quick: When you dream of a more flexible work life, what does it look like? For most of us, the holy grail is working from home—but the future of flexible work arrangements could look very different.
Workers say in survey after survey that flexibility is a very important aspect of job satisfaction. But what they really want is to work from home, according to a recently published study by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
That's not realistic for many of the fields of work that are growing fastest, and it's not something most employers are offering.
Work From Home In 2017: The Top 100 Companies Offering Remote Jobs
Working from home is increasingly the dream of many a harried employee.
But it’s hard to find legitimate work-from-home opportunities that aren’t too-good-to-be-true scams.
FlexJobs, a company that vets all types of flexible job listings including part-time, telecommuting and freelance, today releases the top 100 companies offering telecommuting opportunities in 2017.
The annual list is comprised of the companies that offered the highest number of remote job listings in the FlexJobs database in 2016, out of a total of 47,000 such companies. It includes jobs that allow for telecommuting both part and all of the time. To access these vetted opportunities, the site charges a fee.
Such opportunities seem to be increasing — the percentage of workers doing all or some of their work at home increased from 19% in 2003 to 24% in 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among those in management, business, financial operations and professional jobs, the percentage was 35-38%. And 68% of U.S. workers say that they expect to work remotely in the future.
Working From Home Usually Means Longer Hours For Less Money
Telecommuting sounds like a dream. Instead of sitting in traffic, you get to spend an extra hour in bed. The coffee is better, you don't have to listen to the inane jabbering of your coworkers, and if you get through your quota of work early, you're done for the day, instead of hanging around wasting time to fill up the remaining hours. And while that may be true for some lucky folks, the reality is quite different, especially when it comes to pay and long hours.
"Rather than enhancing true flexibility in when and where employees work," write the authors of a new study, "the capacity to work from home mostly extends the workday and encroaches into what was formerly home and family time."
The biggest problem with telecommuting is taking work home. That sounds odd when the whole point of remote working is to take your work home, but the problem starts when the usual workday ends. Even if you're forced to hang around at the office until your workaholic boss quits for the day, you know when the workday is over. At home, finding work/life balance is tricky, but what you don't often hear is that those extra hours worked at home often go unpaid.
Work From Home Week: 83% of UK employees want to work from home
The survey of 1,000 UK workers reveals that only 36.5 per cent currently work from home for some of the time, despite 90 per cent saying they could work effectively from any location outside of the office if they had the right technology.
Moreover, the research found that 85 per cent say that flexibility in work location and hours is important to them.
83 per cent say it’s not necessary to be in an office to be productive and in fact 69 per cent believed that they had better technology at home than they do at work.
Yang Zhao introduces Sharkman, a Wearable Furniture for Everyday use
Created by product designer Yang Zhao, the sharkman is a hybrid wearable furniture which explores the possibilities of deformable ‘soft furniture’. Working with the idea of flexibility, the item could suit many different situations and usages.
The “Work from Home” Dream Doesn’t Work
The first trend is how the shared office and the network have replaced the solo entrepreneur in her garage as the incubators for new companies and ideas. “Coworking” didn’t exist a decade ago, and today there are nearly a million people globally working alongside peers who aren’t necessarily their colleagues. Workers in these spaces consistently report making more connections, learning skills faster, and feeling more inspired and in control than their cubicle-dwelling counterparts inside large companies. They also have different expectations from cloud workers content to commute from their couch.
“They want connectivity, they want density, and they want fluidity — the ability to move quickly from role to role,” says Jonathan Ortmans, president of the Global Entrepreneurship Network and a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. “I think all three things lend themselves especially well to shared work environments.”
The second, more powerful trend is the steadily climbing number of freelance, independent, contingent, and temporary workers — more than 53 million Americans at last count, including 2.8 million freelance business owners. Survey research by the economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger suggests that nearly all of the 10 million jobs created between 2005 and 2015 fall under this heading, attesting to the rise of the “gig economy.” This structural change is exhilarating if you’re armed with a laptop, Obamacare, and a high hourly rate; not so much if your family needs a steady paycheck.
DOES WORKING FROM HOME WORK FOR CORPORATE AMERICA?
In the Bay Area and beyond, organizations continue to transform their workplaces, and debates continue about the benefits of open floor plans and virtual offices. Globally, a new generation of workers, enabled by technology tools, is fueling the trend of employees setting up shop at home or at other remote locations.
Is working at home right for your workplace? That depends on many variables, including location, commute alternatives, workforce demographics, and job functions. While every workplace is unique and every culture is unique, it may be helpful to look at some of the data. In this article, Robin Weckesser, president of a3 Workplace Strategies, explores the pros and cons.
Via workdesign.com > [paywall]
The Home Office Is Dying
Zac Atkinson keeps a desk in the corner of the living room of his one-bedroom apartment in Studio City, Calif. Not that he uses it much: The work-from-home television writer migrates from couch to kitchen table and back again as he churns out scenes for animated children’s programs. “The folks from the generation before me tend to have more of an office,” says Atkinson, 32. “Most people I know end up sitting on the sofa, and half the time the TV is on when they’re working.”
Not long ago, someone telecommuting might have needed a desktop computer, a printer, a landline, and a fax machine (plus filing cabinets to store pay stubs, bank statements, and bills). Today more people than ever work from home, but laptops and Wi-Fi function just as well couchside—or, hey, by the pool—as deskside, and chances are you’re neither sending nor receiving a ton of faxes. This helps explain why “the bigger, more ornate home offices that we once did have kind of gone away,” says Tim Shigley, a home remodeler in Wichita. “People started saying, ‘Do I need a home office? I have other things I want to buy.’ ”
Home workers take fewer sick days than office based colleagues
Working from home has long been branded ‘shirking from home’ but a new survey suggests that home workers actually take fewer sick days. The research by CartridgePeople.com and published in the SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) Workers Report, found that home workers are not only happier but they are also healthier than their workplace-based counterparts – taking an average of 2.4 sick days per year, in comparison to the 2.6 taken by those working from company premises. Of course, that doesn’t tell us if they are in fact healthier, or that they’re more prepared to carry out their work duties from the comfort of their bed. But the survey of 1,096 British workers, including both home workers and those who work from their employers’ premises, also revealed that the majority of workers (60 percent) did feel happier when working from home.