6 March 2008

WHAT WILL THE EMPLOYEE OF TOMORROW LOOK LIKE?

Is the employee of the future going to be a young, be-suited man or woman sitting at a desk from nine to five? Could it be that future workspaces will be made up of meeting space, and the concept of having your own desk at work no longer existing? The notion of nine to five might gradually disappear, with staff working ad-hoc hours around their home commitments.

Offices will probably disappear and instead mini business centres could spring up near satellite offices. Increasingly people will work from home as organisations cut down their overheads on office space and use remote locations as the new-age workplace.

These communities will build up around 'streetscapes' with services for workers such as hairdressers and cafés. Workers will only come to the office to collaborate. Better technology infrastructure will make distributed working easier. All of this will have a positive impact on health and stress levels.

According to Howard Grosvenor, Managing Consultant at people performance specialist SHL, changes in the wider context of work will have a great impact on the worker of the future. UK employees will need to be flexible enough to continually work across time zones, languages and cultures.

With this new-age worker in mind, many employers are now considering remote working and working from home as viable options in their recruitment drive. Websites such as Remote Employment will come to the fore and take the lead in recruiting ‘tomorrow’s workers’. Currently, around 3.1 million people usually or regularly work from home and this is likely to double in the near future.

Ken Sheridan, Managing Director of Remote Employment, believes the recent emergence of 'virtual jobs' and ‘virtual communities’ is changing the way companies attract and retain skilled employees. Smarter organisations reduce employment costs by adopting ‘remote working’ as a regular employment solution.

Remote Employment is an online web service specialising in remote working, work from home positions and home based appointments. They promote work-life balance with employment solutions such as flexible working, remote working, mobile working and working from home. Adopting this modern day approach to our working lives will increase business productivity and competitiveness, reduce transport congestion and pollution, improve health, assist disadvantaged groups and harmonise our work and family commitments.

Sheridan adds: “The new-age worker’s 'green agenda' will increase home working, which will make it much easier for families to combine work and caring responsibilities. Flexible working at senior levels will be more acceptable, which will encourage more men, particularly in younger age groups, to ask for flexible arrangements enabling them to participate more fully in family life at no cost to their career ambitions.

Remote Employment hopes thousands of companies and organisations will follow the new-age worker by implementing flexible working practices to the benefit of their business, their employees, and the country as a whole.

For more information, browse
www.remoteemployment.com to find a variety of positions suitable for the ‘worker of the future’.


How to set up a home office ...

Before you set up a work station at home, check out our Seven Top Tips on how to work from home:

Your Home Office
Ideally, you will have a spare room to create a home office. If not, a corner of another room, will be fine as long as you are not constantly distracted in the family fast lane. Set up your kitSet up your computer, files and phone to give you maximum comfort for long hours. Have enough plug points for PC, printer, phone, scanner, mobile charger, fax machine and answer phone. Even better get an all in once mod con to save on a jumble of cables and wires.

Pick your desk location
You should be able to see the door of the office from where you are sitting or at least more of your surroundings. Beware of facing the garden and the bird bath – too tempting to watch the world go by! A hard chair will give you backache so spend a little extra on a good one.

Working Hours
Working outside 'normal' working hours helps to balance your work and home life so don't feel guilty dashing off to take the lads to footie after school, as long as you get your work done. Catching up in the early morning or later in the evening works well, but also watch out for going OTT. Make sure you close down and walk away at some point or the family will go hungry.

Have a breather
No matter what kind of work you do or what home you do it in, you can go bonkers if you spend 24 hours a day at it. Get out, whenever you can, to clear your head and to see other people. Use lunch time as a good break to pop down to pick up groceries for dinner, step outside to feed the birds during your coffee break or walk the dog around the block to clear the cobwebs. This is also a great way to mull over a document or get inspiration for new ideas.

Keep in Touch
Have no fear that your social life at work comes to an end if you leave your office to work from home, in fact in some cases your relationship with your colleagues may improve. Email is instant but be careful of 'funnies' – they can eat up a huge chunk of time. Chat through business issues by phone and meet for a quick bite every now and then.

Goal scoring
Give yourself little goals and objectives and then reward yourself when they are complete. Make sure family and friends know your hours or days of working at home and stick to that. Don't be tempted to pop over for a coffee or cook a large meal. Give yourself this time as a reward for getting up early on a Monday to finish a long-winded report. Or if you score well with a new client take five to put your feet up before the school run. Whatever incentives work for you, use them to motivate yourself to balance your time around your other responsibilities.

If you have any suggestions on working from home, please submit your articles to grace@remoteemployment.com.

Remote Work

Remote Employment is a brand new online recruitment site specialising in remote working and home based appointments, professional jobs working from home, home based career opportunities, high quality office-home job combinations and flexible work positions that can be effectively managed away from the office.

Register to find professional, jobs working from home and self employed home based business opportunities. Search to find Candidates, Freelancers, Consultants and creative projects.

Do you want to work remotely