My two youngest children are home from school today due to a scheduled day off. Because my wife has returned to college to prepare for her next career, one in healthcare, I volunteered to work out of my home office. There are certainly advantages to doing so: the elimination of the commute and the ability to work on projects with limited interruption (well, maybe it’s just a different kind of interruption) are the first that come to mind. I am fortunate that The Jacobson Group runs large work-at-home projects for our clients, because that means we have the technology and expertise in place to make my telecommute pretty simple.
If you are a regular reader of our newsletter or participate in our industry-focused webinars, then you know that we have been talking a lot about work-at-home lately. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, this topic has been our most popular in a while. We have seen a significant boost in telecommuting in the past two years. The number of telecommuting projects that we run on behalf of our clients has exploded over the past 24 months, and these arrangements now make up roughly 40% of our projects. This shift is not surprising considering the need to manage costs carefully these days. On the ‘permanent’ side of the labor market, we have also seen a pretty significant change, though that change began in earnest 20 years ago and has been more gradual. These days, virtually every management role we fill, involves the oversight of offsite staff, nearly always including some telecommuters.
