Scarcely a day passes by without fresh figures being released by the Government, trade bodies or market research companies. The workforce sector is noticeably active in this field and every aspect of the world of work is frequentlyinspected. One of the most debated issues in the field is the increasing inclination for people to Work From Home. There is no doubt the United Kingdom’s workforce has become more flexible in the last 30 years. Many older people will be able to recollect the bad old days when the influence of the trade unions preserved the “one man, one job” scenario. This caused such inefficiency in working practices and prevented British businesses from being competitive in world markets. A typical example of this was the motor industry with the old British Leyland company being known more for the regularity of its staff being on strike than the quality of its cars. The best advertisement for the success of the turnaround in that industry’s working practices is that Japanese companies such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota have all established factories in England.

The newly-acquired flexibility in the United Kingdom’s labour force now sees employees who are proficient in a range of areas and has given rise to the expression “multi-tasking”. After this flexibility had been embraced by a company in a particular sector and the advantages had become clear in cost savings and higher profits, then other businesses were obliged follow just to remain competitive. At the same time as this change had been happening almost universally within the workplace another less well known one was beginning to gain momentum. This was the concept of allowing employees to Work From Home. The huge advances in broadband technology were encouraging lots of employees to enquire whether their jobs, which were then known as office jobs, white collar jobs or some other such term, could now be known as Online Jobs.

The World Wide Web has caused the formation of a great number of new start-up ventures, most, if not all of which use the latest technology to the full and label themselves as an Internet Business. As a lot of these new businesses were not tied by traditional working processes they were quite willing to allow staff to Work From Home. Obviously there are some tasks which will never become Online Jobs due to the type of work involved but as newer technology is developed on an almost daily basis this increases the chances that an increasing number of staff will be able to work at home.

While an Internet Business may be comfortable with the concept of Online Jobs, what has been the reaction of the more established ones? This is where market research can help to provide the answer. An Omnibus Survey from July 2008 showed that 3% of ALL staff always worked from home. National Travel surveys had produced a similar figure for every year from 2002 to 2008 although their figures were based on employed workers only, not those who were self-employed. Where the figures begin to show a trend is for those staff who only Work From Home on occasions, not permanently. In 2007 5 percent ofstaff worked at home once a week but this rose to seven percent in 2008. Similarly, the figure for working at home once a month grew from 4 percent in 2007 to 5 percent in 2008. The figures seem to suggest that the established, traditional business is starting to follow the lead of the Internet Business in allowing some of its staff to Work From Home.

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