SoHo, you're working from home
While the statistics vary, there is no doubt that a substantial percentage of paid work is now conducted from home, and that it’s a phenomenon on the rise.
Sarah Cumberland and Lowell Tarling wrote in a recent edition of Dynamic Small Business that around 25 percent of the workforce will be based at home within the next 10 years.
Outsourcing, retirement and redundancy-driven small business startups, and people simply wanting to combine work with a family-oriented lifestyle, are all factors in favour of the Small Office Home Office (SoHo) trend.
Where once the home-based business was not taken very seriously, today it’s increasingly recognised that skill, talent, and professionalism can thrive in the relatively relaxed home environment.
Is working from home for you? It’s an individual choice, and certainly not for everyone.
Working from home means you have to discipline yourself to actually work. Many people find this easier when they have to go out to work rather than simply stroll down the corridor to a home office. For some, the paraphernalia of home and family life are just too distracting. You also need to consider whether it’s feasible to work from home. Many occupations require a registered workplace and strict adherence to workplace health and safety regulations.
Businesses that operate best from home usually involve sole traders in the service industry or with a profession. Freelance journalists, photographers, editors, public relations consultants, talent agencies, accountants, bookkeepers, financial advisors, desktop publishers, web designers, and domestic cleaning and gardening services are some of the occupations which find working from home to their advantage. The most obvious advantage is – whether rented, mortgaged, or fully owned – you’re already paying for your home. Apart from office set-up costs, you needn’t pay any more to work from it. You can simply register a business name and get set.
Let’s say you’ve decided to take the leap. The first thing to do is work out exactly what you’ll be doing in your home office. Will you be spending most of your time in the office, or out in the field? This has a direct bearing on the amount of space and equipment you’re likely to need.
An architect, for example, has very different home office needs to someone operating a lawn mowing franchise. The architect needs space and equipment to undertake design work, a separate area to handle administrative tasks, and a place to meet and discuss work with clients. The lawn mowing franchise operator, on the other hand, spends most of his or her day in the field so may only need a small office area containing a desk, computer, telephone, and fax for administrative purposes.
Having decided on the amount of space and equipment you’ll need, you now need to choose the best place to put it. A good way to decide this is to observe how your family actually lives in the house. Where they spend most of their time at home is where your office should not be.
Good places for home offices are attics, front rooms (especially at the end of long corridors), rooms under a high-set home, or over a garage.
If you expect to have clients regularly visiting you, try to set up a dedicated meeting space away from family areas. Discussing work with clients at the kitchen or dining room table with family members preparing food or watching TV in the background is simply not professional.
Now you’ve set up your office, you need to convince family, friends, and even colleagues that – yes, this is a real office, and yes, you’re really working in it.
The strange idea lingers in some quarters that, because you’re at home, you’re not really working so it’s okay to drop in for a coffee and chat, isn’t it? Of course it isn’t, and the best way to handle this is to establish office hours from Day One.
If the business begins to expand to the point where you need to take on someone to handle the workload, it may be time to consider moving to a commercial office space. Bringing team members into your home can put you on the wrong side of council bylaws unless you’re prepared to turn your home into a registered workplace and meet the appropriate workplace health and safety laws. It can also create tension for family members who are not likely to appreciate the intrusion of outsiders needing to use the toilet or kitchen.
One solution is to outsource work to other small businesses rather than employing people to handle it in-house. A media services operator, for example, can have up to 15 people working under their direction and not one of them has to be in-house or on the payroll. You can have a team of people working from their own offices who meet regularly to discuss projects.
Working from home can offer many advantages. You can do the kind of work you always wanted to do, manage your own time and income, and spend more time with your family. However like anything else, it has to be planned if it’s to succeed.
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