Telecommuting: The Future Of Work?

The World of Telecommuting

Today, approximately 1/5th of the global workforce spend part of their week working  from home. While telecommuting is a relatively common practice, people’s viewpoints and the working practice itself are far from standard around the globe.

Statistics show that 20% of workers around the world telecommute frequently, with only 7% of people working from home on a daily basis.

For those who do not have the opportunity of telecommuting, one of the main reasons is that their employer requires them to be in their workplace like Yahoo. CEO Marissa Mayer recently introduced a controversial telecommuting ban on her employees pointing to productivity metrics as a concern.

The following information shows the percentages of workers by country who have to be in their workplace:

Mexico 6%, India 7%, Indonesia 4%, Argentina 11%, South Africa 10%, China 8%, Turkey 11%, Russia 14%, Hungary 19%, Saudi Arabia 13%, Spain 18%, South Korea 15%, Poland 20%, Brazil 28%, Italy 23%, Belgium 23%, France 28%, Germany 29%, Australia 31%, Canada 37%, United States 38%, Great Britain 37%, Japan 29%, Sweden 36%.

6 in 10 workers around the world would likely telecommute full time if their employer would allow it; however, opinions on the benefits of working this way are mixed.

Telecommuters have less stress because they spend less time in their workplace; in fact, 78% of telecommuters say they have a better work-family balance, but others say telecommuting creates conflict by lowering the boundaries between work life and family life.  Working remotely makes employees less likely to be promoted; this makes sense because 62% of telecommuters say not seeing co-workers face-to-face, isolates those who do telecommute. Figures show that telecommuting would help keep 83% more talented women in the workforce instead of leaving to raise children.

So, its a mixed world of opinions regarding the home working environment.  Check out this infographic by Ipsos for some more interesting facts about telecommuting:

Source: HowDoIBecomeA.net

How do you find the daily grind? Harsh and stressful or open and relaxed?  I’ll be in my man cave, drinking espresso with my feet up writing my next article…

[Image via talentnetlive]