Friday 19th March 2010, 9:38am
Is It Really That Ace Working From Home?
Mark Boyd, Marketing Manager at School For Startups
by Victoria Atherstone
The short answer is . . . Absolutely.
Let’s start with what I don’t miss. How about that 1.5 hour commute across London, having to contend with those lovely scented armpits on the way home, the person that decided it was a good idea to pour half a bottle of smelly over themselves that day, or the fact that on most journeys I had to stand the entire way. Then there were those early starts five days a week, which to be honest with you, I never really enjoyed. Or how about the ridiculous amount of cash I used to spend on public transport each and every month? Actually with a little more thought I could certainly make this a wonderfully long list.
But actually this is not what this blog is about. This is not about why its good for me to telecommute. It’s about why its good for our business.
So what does School for Startups stand to gain from allowing me and our other employees to work from home? Well I, as a key executive, have saved 3 hours of my day from avoiding that commute. I can choose to spend those hours in bed catching up on much needed beauty sleep which makes me like my company better, or I can add three very precious hours to my working day. Every employee in our company sees those benefits, and we are a very happy and productive lot as a by product.
School for Startups sees the benefit in it’s wallet too. Lower absentee rates, lower travel costs, more productivity . . . If I were Doug and running this business I might well decide to spend that newly acquired money on something like adding to my SEO spend or Google Ad campaign that month.
So what makes working from home really ace and especially so for the employer? Well we use Skype (or as Doug insists on calling it, Sky-pee) to communicate. Gone are the days of monthly landline fees, hurray. In fact almost all our business phone calls now take place on Skype here at School for Startups, whether we are speaking to our wonderful PR agency Seven Hills, our whizz web developer Jack Lenox or our newly recruited and hugely talented designer Erin Rommel. It is also worth noting that being virtual means that we don’t necessarily need to recruit from within London or indeed the UK, our speedy gonzalez and hugely talented Editor is actually working from home right now in sunny California, yes I know, alright for some hey. Sorry Nancy! But what is really ace is that it doesn’t matter where we are or how many folk need to be in the conversation, Skype is certainly the answer. Oh did I mention it’s free! Can you tell I am an advocate?
But yes we can’t always work from home; it’s healthy for team morale, bonding and the like and also for efficiency that we meet once a week face to face. I have to say that I can let you into a little secret and if you’re based in London a great tip too, check out the recently refurbished Royal Institution of Great Britain. Apart from being one of our London homes for live events it’s also a fab place for team meetings! Luxurious surroundings, sensible tables and chairs for working with a laptop, free WiFi, great food with excellent price tags, slap bang in the middle of town, just two tube stops from Waterloo and no membership fee! Oh dear, I think I might have just caused a temporary space problem for the Ri! Seriously folks you need to check it out.
Well I am a bit addicted to the wonderful world of Twitter and I have just tweeted that it appears I am not a natural blogger however on a personal note I have totally enjoyed sharing my experiences and I hope for some this has been helpful. I would love to hear your thoughts on how working from home has been ace for you and your business and by leaving a few comments here you will in fact be sharing the love with your fellow entrepreneurs. What a nice thought to end on.
Tags: naked business, School for Startups, working from home
Great article Victoria, informative and entertaining! I’m a huge advocate of home working and break out in a cold sweat at the thought of ever having to do a Mon-Fri 9-5 in an office ever again.
It takes a bit of self-discipline though to avoid the temptations of the Jeremy Kyle Show.
Great article but having worked from home a bit in the past I feel that you can’t beat working in an office environment and learning from others around you and throwing ideas around. It is also very difficult to stay disciplined. The ideal scenario is only working from home a couple of days a week.
I work from home and so do the others helping me with my project, including some very kind work experience students based in Cardiff, Salamanca and Barcelona! We have regular Skype chats and are in constant email communication, but they can fit writing articles around their university studies, while I get the sparkiest people I can find working for me – even though they’re not based in London. For me it’s been important to have lots of enthusiastic people involved in starting up the business (even though I can’t afford to have us all in one room) and they keep me motivated.
Yep, you can’t beat the 3 minute commute downstairs. I have a whiteboard on the wall, and fill it before I leave the office for the day. It helps empty your head and provide that little bit of separation that you would get when you walk out of the traditional workplace. Discipline can be a problem, but the way I beat that is bying keeping a log of my hours worked. Watching the Jeremy Kyle show only makes me want to work harder so I’m never one of his guests…