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Is telecommuting feeling the economic squeeze?

Jessica Stillman — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:01:29 +0000

For exactly all of its obvious benefits to productivity, the environment and even the bottom line, telecommuting has experienced explosive growth. There may be plenty of chatter about the practice and even government cheerleading for companies to get on the bandwagon, but outside certain specific professional niches and geographical regions, working via the Internet is hardly the day-to-day norm for most.

Nor is the uptake of telecommuting speeding up, according to recent research. In fact, the rate of growth is slowing down, claims a recent post on the blog Workshifting:

The latest research from the Telework Research Network indicates that while telework is growing, it’s not increasing at the pace we might have expected. According to 2009 U.S. Census data, 61 percent more employees considered home their primary place of work versus 2005. But that number translates to only 2.3 percent of the total workforce.

When compared with a recent report from WorldatWork, which indicates that the overall number of teleworkers declined between 2008 and 2010, a trend emerges. The frequency of telework has increased, meaning fewer workshifters are doing more flexible work.

What’s behind this decrease in the number of teleworkers? Workshifting suggests a number of possibilities, including:

Not everyone wants to telecommute
Companies struggling to quantify the costs and benefits
Inadequate tools and resources available to support the lifestyle
Businesses still unsure how to manage people they can’t see

All of these are certainly hurdles to increased telecommuting, but a separate recent study suggests the slowdown in the increase in remote work may have a simpler explanation: the terrible economy.

That seems to be true in the UK at least, where communications company O2 has recently published a report looking at the future of work and flexible working. The poll of 2,000 workers found that two out of five feel pressured to be in the office because of the gloomy economy. O2 has dubbed the fear of prejudice against remote work “presenteeism” and says the condition is on the rise among Brits.

“With so many organizations facing economic uncertainty, our research suggests large numbers of businesses are missing out on the productivity gains, improved employee and customer engagement and efficient processes that such flexible working practices can deliver,” said David Plumb, O2′s general manager for enterprise.

At Net:Work in December, we’ll discuss the future of the mobile workforce and how managers can better manage remote workers. Get your tickets today.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Images_of_Money

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Will good economic tidings kill coworking?

Jessica Stillman — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:00:33 +0000

According to sources including the Telework Research Network and FlexJobs.com, remote work has boomed during the recession as job seekers look beyond traditional office-based gigs and companies embrace any opportunity to cut costs. That boom in nontraditional work, along with high levels of interest in entrepreneurship, has fed enthusiasm for coworking spaces. But will this enthusiasm outlast the tough economic times?

This question was recently posed in Fortune by Elaine Pofeldt, who offered some skepticism that coworking would continue to flourish if better economic times returned:

Of course, no one knows how long the party will continue for coworking spaces. The trend has been fueled, in part, by an economy where corporate jobs for the young are scarce. A survey of coworking spaces by Emergent Research in 2010 found that their desks and sofas are mostly filled by well-educated male techies who are under 40, with 55% working for small companies and 44% of them freelancers or sole proprietors.

She also quotes fellow skeptic Paul V. Carter, a senior vice president at flexible office space provider OfficeLinks, who said: “Do members of Generation Y and Millennials really want to be independent contractors when Google offers them a permanent position? How much do they like this lifestyle? I suspect it’s not as much as people think.”

But owners and managers of coworking spaces we spoke to think there are several good reasons a better business environment won’t put a damper on their movement. Noelle Stary, co-founder of Launchpad Creatives in New Jersey, for one, feels that the damage has been done and workers will no longer want to rely on big companies like they once did, even if the economy comes back.

“People are learning to brand themselves,” she says. “People seem to know that one big business is not going to keep them employed long term. So if people are looking to stay fresh and want to explore their entrepreneurial side these coworking spaces also offer late hours and weekends for the person trying to get another business off the ground while being employed full time.”

And Sam Rosen of The COOP in Chicago is also feeling confident that, while some very large spaces may face difficulties in boom times, his space can withstand an uptick in the economy. For one, it’s busier than it has every been, with interest also at an all time high. Plus, this interest doesn’t seem to be coming from economic desperation (or, at least at Rosen’s space, mainly from the Millennials Carter mentions in Fortune). The workers flooding the COOP aren’t driven their by financial necessity, Rosen reports, but by their desire for a better way to work.

“I get the feeling that coworking has become a lifestyle for people and a way of getting work done. I think that movement is growing and will continue to grow as the economy grows,” he says. “People are tired of working in cubicles and workspaces that don’t inspire them, so until that problem is fixed in big corporations, I think there will continue to be an exodus to more equipped, modular spaces.”

Craig Baute, owner of Creative Density Coworking in Denver, agrees that coworking is a genuine lifestyle choice rather than an option of last resort and feels that that technology and demographics are driving interest in this lifestyle. These strong fundamentals should support the growth of movement even after the economy improves, he believes. “Coworking is a movement driven mostly by technology, not the recession. If costs were the main factor than people would be working at home and possibly the coffee shop as cheaper alternatives.”

“According to the Global Coworking Survey 75 percent of coworkers have a college degree. The unemployment rate for college graduates is below 5 percent, far from the national average. Coworkers are also younger, under 40, and very comfortable with technology,” Baute points out, proving that coworking’s core demographic isn’t the one most affected by recession.

What do you think the fate of coworking spaces will be when the economy finally heats up again?

Image courtesy of Flickr user jonny goldstein.

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A Silver Lining to the Recession: Increased Telecommuting

Jessica Stillman — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:07:58 +0000

The recession flooded the job market with overqualified applicants and caused employers to count their pennies and squeeze every last drop of productivity from their employees. But how exactly did it affect the remote work space? Were employers spoiled for choice and reluctant to allow flexibility and mobility? Did lean economic times increase or decrease the number of workers looking for remote gigs?

Sara Sutton Fell, the founder and CEO of flexible and telecommuting job board FlexJobs.com, is in an ideal position to know. As the economy tanked and now waveringly rights itself, she has observed the quantity, type and behavior of both employers and job hunters on her site, sussing out the effects of the economic downturn on telecommuting. She spoke to WebWorkerDaily about her observations:

When I originally started the company a little over four years ago it was pre-recession. And that was a very different market. At the time my target audience was work-from-home moms, tapping into the idea that at least in the U.S. and probably in many other countries they’re one of the most under-employed audiences. Mainly because they’re highly educated women who have left the workforce because they can’t find something that offers them the flexibility, reduced schedule or alternative schedule that accommodates their commitment to their families. So that was definitely what I anticipated to be a large majority of our audience.

With the recession it’s very much evolved to be across the board. We’re maybe about 60/40, female to male. It’s everything from entry-level to executive level. I think the recession has raised awareness among people who were skeptical or previously wouldn’t have considered flexibility or telecommuting either in their hiring practices or their job-seeking practices. From the job seeker perspective, they’ve had to look out of the box because they haven’t been able to find the traditional, normal, full-time job that they would have looked for. The awareness has been forced by the recession, but has gained momentum both from the benefits telecommuting offers, but also from other trends that have been feeding into it for some time — technology supporting mobility, the environmental issues, things like emergency preparedness, bad weather. I could go on and on.

But it’s not just job seekers who have been forced to reevaluate telecommuting due to the dismal economic conditions. Employers have taken a fresh look at web work as well, says Sutton Fell.

It’s not how I would have wished it to happen, but I do think the recession has opened employers’ eyes to the fact that these opportunities are not just fuzzy, soft benefits for employees, but they actually offer quite a wide variety of benefits for them as well, including economic benefits, which is ultimately what it’s about.

IT and tech are the traditional sectors that utilize telecommuting, but during the recession organizations in a wide variety of sectors increasingly looked to web workers, according to FlexJobs data.

In telecommuting particularly we had an over 400 percent increase of jobs our researchers would find in the last three years alone. Our categories that have grown the most are medical and health. Sales has definitely been big. Education is a really big one with all the online education opportunities. Non-profit and philanthropy is an area that has been embracing the benefits, especially the reduced overhead benefit, and also the philosophical ones, especially with environmental organizations. IT and web and software development have always been big, but business development, account management, marketing, all of those areas have grown quite a lot in the last few years.

I think employers in all industries have been looking for ways to save money, and they’re exploring either reduced or alternative schedules or some level where they don’t having to hire a traditional, on site full-time employee.

Will a boost in awareness of the benefits of telecommuting among both employers and job seekers be the silver lining to the grim economy of the past few years?

Image courtesy Flickr user mnsc

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Surviving After-School Time: Meet Deadlines and Keep Your Kids Happy

Meryl K Evans — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:00:10 +0000

In my school district, kids get out of school as early as 2:45 pm and as late as 4:15 pm. If you start working after the kids leave for school, you can usually get around six or seven hours of work done. Most people tend to work at least eight hours per day — so how do you deal with the after-school time, when work still needs to be done?

You may need to help the younger ones with homework or teach them study skills. You may need to switch into chauffeur mode to get the kids to sports, music lessons or club activities. Everyone has different needs and situations. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of suggestions of things that you can do to keep your kids happy and meet your deadlines:

Sign up the kids for after-school programs: Some schools have a program on campus. Many nearby daycare centers send vans to pick up the kids.
Hire a student: Some high schoolers finish school early enough to hang with your kids and help with homework. It helps if the high schooler can drive so they can come to your place and take the kids to the park or the library. This approach worked well for me last year. If it appeals to you, check your local colleges as well. Colleges may have a bulletin board or some other job notification system where you can advertise this kind of work.
Make a schedule: This is the approach I’m now using, and so far, so good. When the elementary kids arrive home, they have about 30 minutes to chill and eat snacks. Then one hour of homework, quiet and reading time. That time frame removes the temptation to rush through homework to go outside or do something fun. If they finish homework early, they still have to wait the full hour before playtime begins.
Take turns with other parents: Find other work-from-home parents to take turns in watching the kids. That way, you can get a couple of afternoons to yourself.
Pay another parent to help: When I still had a corporate job and my son needed to be somewhere right before I got off work, a good friend took him for me while I picked him up. Though we do things for each other all the time, this regular carpooling warranted a little extra.
Treat the afternoon as family time: Give yourself a break and enjoy spending a few hours with your kids, preparing for dinner and helping with homework. Finish your work in the evening after they’ve gone to bed. Instead of lunch breaks, take late afternoon breaks. But still, walk away from the computer for at least five minutes several times a day for health’s sake. Oh, and be careful not to get food and drink on the keyboard.
Set aside time on the weekend: If your situation doesn’t give you enough time during the week, pick a time on the weekend to do your work. It helps to have a home office so the kids know not to disturb mom or dad while they’re working, unless it’s an emergency (note that a kid’s definition of “emergency” will probably not be the same as yours, so you might want to discuss that beforehand). No home office? Create a work area that signals to the kids that mom or dad is at work.

Web working gives parents the flexibility to be there for their kids and put family first. They don’t have to explain themselves to coworkers and bosses when they need to take care of family business. I love working out of my home office as it provides a well-rounded life.

How do you manage your family around your web working career?

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The Future of Work: The Freelancer Report 2009

Imran Ali — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:00:21 +0000

This week I’ve been speculating on the Future of Work and the types of skills that might be required. However, hindsight can provide useful clues to the future, so it’s important to reflect on existing behavior in order to determine where we’re headed.

Between April and June of this year, online accounting service FreeAgent surveyed its users. The result is “The Freelancer Report,” an in-depth study of 535 freelancers and small businesses. Though the respondents were mainly based in the UK and the Netherlands, and the survey was primarily intended to understand the impact of the global recession, it provides some indications of trending behaviors and make for interesting reading.

More than half of responders describe themselves as freelancers, with a minority using terms such as “consultant” and “contractor,” while “small business” is the smallest category. Does this represent the triumph of personal branding for freelancers?

Unsurprisingly, the bulk of surveyed freelancers are working in technology — from IT and consultancy to design and development. Curiously, journalism is also quite prominent, suggesting that the implosion of the newspaper industry is perhaps encouraging talent to go it alone.

Most respondents have been self-employed for under three years, suggesting that the recession isn’t hurting independent workers.

Freelancers seem to be servicing large and small clients quite evenly, indicating that it’s a mode of work with which that most clients are comfortable.

It’s heartening to know most freelancers are paying a lot of attention to actually running their businesses — from accounting to invoicing — suggesting most aren’t surprised by the overheads of operation, and are not just simply delivering the work.

Surprisingly, most don’t seem to have felt the full effects of the recession, and although cautiously optimistic, many anticipate lower earnings in the immediate future.

The report goes on to rank “indices of optimism,” “expected earnings” and the degree to which various industries are feeling the downturn.

Overall, it seems freelancing is particularly a robust and optimistic mode of work, even in a meltdown. This is perhaps a reflection on the agility of small businesses in a turbulent marketplace and being able to maintain a portfolio of opportunities.

Has the recession impacted your freelancing business to the extent that you thought it might?

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Recession Avoidance Tactics

Georgina Laidlaw — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:00:23 +0000

“I’d rather keep working in the hope of getting paid than stop working and know I’m not going to get paid.” These words, from a friend of mine who’s not getting paid by the company she’s freelancing for — the only project she has right now — might shock you if you’re on a nice steady cashflow. But if your income isn’t so stable, you might be able to relate to her sense of desperation.

Though I know no one’s immune from a recession, this conversation made me think about my own approach to the financial side of what I do. I started to think about what, if anything, I could do to try to cushion myself from the current (and future) economic turmoil. Here’s what I came up with.

1. I need a savings buffer.

Much of my work is short contract jobs, so I need to make sure I have enough money in the bank. I’ve seen a lot of talk about having a buffer that would last three months if you were out of work. That will be difficult to achieve, but it’s worth aiming for.

2. I need to pay my debts down, if not off.

Sometimes my credit card can get a hammering, so I’ve decided to pay it off every couple of weeks at the moment. This helps me avoid the “how-on-earth-did-I-spend-that-much” moments of truth that can occur if I leave it longer, and makes it easier to track my spending.

3. I need to track my spending.

I find it hard to save money if I don’t know where it’s all going, but I also find it nearly impossible to stick to a budget. I’ve taken to using my budget as a rough template for my spending, and simply tracking my spending against it. This approach allows for the variability of expenses from week to week and month to month, but also lets me work out where my money’s going, and find areas where I could be more frugal.

The budget’s invaluable on a day-to-day basis, but it’ll also help me make decisions if I’m asked to discount my rates or change my pricing structure.

4. I need strategies for finding new work.

I’ve been thinking that perhaps my wait-for-it-to-come-to-me approach to work won’t cut it if I’m out of work this time around. I’ve brainstormed a few ideas for finding work in markets that seem to be doing OK despite the downturn, and started networking with providers of complementary services that seem to be winning work right now.

Since I’ve done this, I’m also finding I’m more alert to potential opportunities and ideas that crop up as I go about my days, and I’ve started to keep a list of these so I don’t lose track of them.

5. I need to stay motivated.

With the constant news of unemployment statistics, redundancies and so on, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom. So rather than worrying, I’m trying to stay focused on the jobs I have coming up, and to feel reassured by my budgeting and any inroads I can make on my savings plan. When all else fails, I tell myself it won’t last forever — and I’m doing everything I can to stay in the game.

What are your tactics for keeping the wolf from the door?

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LaidOffCamp: A User-Generated Conference for the Recession

Simon Mackie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:00:52 +0000

The very first LaidOffCamp — think BarCamp for those who have lost their jobs due to the recession — kicks off tomorrow, March 3, at 9 a.m. at Temple in San Francisco. It’s billed as “an ad-hoc gathering of unemployed and nontraditionally employed people (including freelancers, entrepreneurs and startups) who want to share ideas and learn from each other.” You don’t have to be unemployed to attend.

Over 20 discussion sessions are planned for the day on many topics that might be of interest to web workers, such as “Networking 101,” “Building Your Personal Brand” and “How to be a Freelance Consultant.” There should also be plenty of networking opportunities, including an after-party.

LaidOffCamp is being organized by recently laid off consultant Chris Hutchins. Tickets are free, although attendees are encouraged to make a donation that suits their budget. LaidOffCamp is expecting between 300 and 500 people to attend; according to the event’s Facebook page, there are more than 280 confirmed attendees so far.

Further events are planned in Dallas, New York and Miami, with more cities in the pipeline.

Are you planning on attending LaidOffCamp?

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Thrive in Tough Times

Simon Mackie — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:22:47 +0000

Times are tough, we all know that. We also know that there are always opportunities to be had, and that companies that survive this downturn will emerge stronger than ever.

But in reading “Business Opportunities Abound, Even in Bad Times” in the NY Times, I was reminded that there are opportunities out there expressly as a result of the economic malaise.

The three examples given in the article that prompted this thought were:

1. A provider of medical bill discounts to low-income earners, which expects its customer base to grow sixfold this year (as more people lose their jobs, their potential market grows).

2. A computer security specialist (more disgruntled ex-employees mean that more companies might need security services).

3. A “search fund,” an operation that actively looks for businesses to buy and flip (taking advantage of tumbling prices caused by the poor economy).

You can extend the thinking behind these kinds of businesses to revenue streams that may work well for web workers. You need to think about what types of services are likely to be in demand because we’re in a recession, and see if you can extend your offering to meet those needs.

If you’re a web developer you could build a service that helps people looking for cheap medical insurance; services that helps folks save cash on basic needs would be another idea. For example, a site where users could get coupons, or where they could research which grocery stores are cheapest based on the type of goods they’re looking to buy.

Or if you have security expertise, you could follow the example of Fidelis Security, covered in the article, and target your offering to companies worried about “data leaks” from disgruntled ex-employees.

If you have some capital, now might be a good time to look for web businesses to acquire to add to your portfolio. Tough times mean that you may be able to grab a bargain.

As a web worker, you’re already in a good position to weather the recession: you have a low cost base, you are agile, and you can access a global marketplace. But by making some smart decisions, your business could actually thrive in this downturn.

What strategies are you using to thrive in the downturn?

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Do You Do Web Work During Weekends?

Celine Roque — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 13:02:24 +0000

Image by sxc.hu user Zela

I called one of my friends earlier this week and asked her if we could have lunch on Sunday. I was surprised that she said she couldn’t make it, since she had to work. “What kind of evil forces are making you do this?” I asked her. Then again, who was I kidding? I was planning to write a couple of blog posts on Sunday evening. Like my friend, I was going to work during the weekend.

As I reviewed my own work habits, as well as those of other web workers, it became evident that working during the weekends is becoming more common.

The weekend is dynamic

These days, the definition of “weekend” isn’t as firm as it used to be. Many corporate employees I know say that, as part of cost-cutting measures, their employers give them a four-day work week. This leaves them three days of the week for rest and recreation. These three days aren’t fixed either, as they find themselves taking Wednesdays, Sundays and Saturdays off during one fiscal quarter, and a different combination of days the following quarter.

If you’re self-employed, you even have the option of changing your work week in such a way that a weekday can be your “weekend”. For example, if there’s an event I have to go to in the middle of the week, I “pretend” that it’s a Saturday and move my schedule around to turn one of my weekend days into a working day. I also do this when I find myself sick for a couple of days. Just make sure that when you change your work days around it doesn’t conflict with anything that a client or supervisor expects from you.

Weekend warriors

In the economic downturn, it’s common for traditionally employed workers to take on a second job during the weekends. Because of the flexibility it offers, self-employment is one of the more popular options. This is also one of the reasons why the number of small businesses tend to rise during a recession.

There are other reasons why employees might opt to work during the weekend. If they want to secure their position in the company, they’ll be more willing to go the extra mile and work during the weekends if it means getting on the good side of their supervisors.

Even freelancers might find themselves working during the weekend. Apart from the economic factors, the low work-life separation makes it easier for leisure and work time to intersect or overlap. For example, I sometimes get the urge to work on non-billable tasks during the weekends. I find myself writing invoices, doing a bit of self-promotion, or trying to prepare my work for the following week. Fellow WWD blogger Dawn Foster even gets things done during the holidays.

Many freelancers might also use the weekend to pursue side projects. Often, these are non-profit or low-profit projects. We work on these things because they allow us to give back to the community, as well as explore ideas and tasks that we don’t get to do on a normal work day.

Whether it’s the economic crisis or a force of habit, there are a variety of reasons why some people work during the weekends. I just hope that no matter how productive we get during the week, we won’t forget to make enough time for rest.

Do you find yourself working during the weekend?

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Unemployment, The Economic Downturn and Web Working

Dawn Foster — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:00:28 +0000

Photo by _e.t.

I left my corporate job in June to strike out on my own as a freelance consultant working out of my home office and coffee shops. I had been preparing to make the move for a while, and it was something that I knew I wanted to try. The technology industry was growing and there were plenty of job openings in my field of expertise: online communities and social media. I left confident that I had plenty of time to test the waters as a freelance web worker knowing that I could always go back to the corporate world if freelance consulting didn’t work out for me.

I’m happy to say that consulting is working well for me right now, because I’m no longer confident that I could find a new corporate job as quickly or easily as I might have been able to get one a year ago.

The job market is getting tougher each month as unemployment continues to rise. At this point, I should emphasize that I am not an economist, employment guru or other expert qualified to analyze this data, so consider this just one web worker’s summary of the current economic conditions.

Let’s start with the recent employment data. Grim and depressing are the best ways I could come up with to describe the employment data that was released on Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor. Here are a few “highlights” from the report:

Unemployment rose from 6.8 percent in November to 7.2 percent in December.
The number of unemployed people in the U.S. is now 11.1 million up by 632,000 in December
From the beginning of the recession in December 2007, unemployment has increased by 2.3 percent with 3.6 million additional people becoming unemployed.

However, this may not tell the whole story for those of us in various web working professions. In an article by Brett Philbin, of Dow Jones Newswires, John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, predicted that the economic downturn could have an interesting impact on web working:

“Challenger said that the economic downturn could lead to a surge in some workplace trends such as telecommuting as companies look for alternative ways to cut costs. In addition, job seekers may look for creative ways to find employment, including the use of social networking sites and posting video resumes on Google Inc.’s (GOOG) YouTube.”

Telecommuting and web working are growing trends that have been covered recently on WebWorkerDaily with posts about The State of Telecommuting and Trends in Teleworking, so I won’t revisit those trends in detail here.

I did decide that it would be good to get the perspective of a couple of job sites focused on freelancers, consultants, and other web workers, so I contacted oDesk and Elance to get their take on the recent news and learn more about how the economic downturn was impacting their job postings.

oDesk provided me with this data:

They had 4,100 working providers in December compared to 4,000 in November (growth of 2 percent) despite the fact that December is typically a slow month for starting work on new web projects.
The number of providers working in Q4 was up 13 percent over the number working in Q3.
They’ve seen a large increase in provider signups (registrations of people that may not have found a job yet): Q3 signups of 36,000 and Q4 signups of 52,000 (47 percent growth).

Elance sent me these numbers:

60,000 new jobs were posted in Q4 of 2008 (up 39 percent compared to same period in 2007). The number of new jobs posted in December was up 48 percent from December 2007 and November was up 35 percent from December 2007.
Over $14 million in payments made to service providers in Q4 of 2008 (up over 40 percent from Q4 2007)
More than 55,000 unique businesses in working engagements with service providers in the past 6 months (up 44 percent from same time a year ago).

Keep in mind that these numbers are self-reported by companies with a vested interest in the telecommuting and web working industry, and these numbers include jobs outside of the U.S., so they can’t be directly compared to the earlier data from the U.S. Department of Labor. However, they do highlight an interesting trend showing an increase in freelance and web worker activity.

Now comes the hard part: making sense of all of this data. We have several sets of numbers that may or may not be related in any way showing different perspectives and different conclusions, so here is where you come into the picture. In the best tradition of the lazy blogger, I outsource the analysis (the hard part) to you.

Are web worker jobs increasing in spite of the economic downturn or is the increasing unemployment rate pushing more people into freelancing positions while they look for other work? What other data have you found recently that might shed some light on this question? Have you noticed any relevant anecdotal trends as part of your day to day web working?

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