Homeworking: Living the Dream

Working from home has evolved into a growing trend that is showing no signs of dissipating. Even taking into account the recession, the number of people working from home has still increased significantly. On our end, the growing trend can be seen in an increased demand for our Garden Offices and Garden Studios.

In the first three months of 2014, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that more than 4.2 million people were working from home, which accounted for around 14% of the UK's workforce.

There are of course obvious factors toward the increase in those people working from home. The major one being that advances in communication technology allow people to work remotely with minimal effort. For some there is also an improvement in employment relations when working from home is a possibility. It can also save considerable costs for employers, as well as freeing up desks or space for other employees.

There are of course advantages and disadvantages to working from home.

Advantages:

• Real flexibility about the hours allowing you to meet (or juggle!) any home commitments. Planning your own time can be such an advantage.
• A saving in travel costs. This can be a massive saving especially to those making long treks into cities. Working from home can also do wonders for reducing stress, not to mention the environmental benefits of not commuting to and from work. 
• You can control your own working day much more easily from home.
• No noise or distractions from working in an office atmosphere (particularly the open plan office) means better concentration and therefore more achievement!
• Working from home can mean that those with disabilities or mobility problems are now accessible to the employment market.

Disadvantages:

• You may feel somewhat isolated with no work colleagues. This also means you have no-one to bounce ideas off of. 
• You can miss out on office-based learning opportunities.
• Having flexibility carries the risk of eating into precious family time or downtime with no real cut off from work.
• You may have to sacrifice valuable living space. We have the solution for that!
• If the technology fails, there is no technician to come along and fix it immediately.
• You need to have regard for the protection of sensitive material and the requirement of a computer solely for work purposes.
• Working from home may require self-discipline as it would be possible to drift and lose focus from time to time.

Earlier in the year, Yahoo! created an uproar when they required all employees to come back and work in their office. "To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side by side" says communication between Marissa Mayer and Jacqueline Reses of Yahoo!. This could of course have more to do with the refocusing of Yahoo! itself rather than the principle of working from home, but it created a certain amount of outrage.

The purchase of a garden studio means that you do not have to sacrifice living space. Having a separate workspace allows you to separate your work and the home environment without forgoing the flexible advantages of working from home. Working in a garden or outside environment is inspiring, creative and liberating.

Our garden offices and garden studio range is built to last with the highest grade FSC® certified timber, lined and insulated for year-round use and beautifully designed too. We finish the buildings with the finest fittings and with our exterior paint system which as well as coming in a range of lovely colours also means that you won't have to repaint your studio very often at all. All of our garden buildings are hand-crafted by our expert staff, who will also deliver and install your garden building for free.

Should you prefer to discuss your requirements with one of our team of staff, please do not hesitate to Contact Us or call us on 01760 444229. Alternatively, you may like to visit one of our UK Show Centres and discuss your needs with a member of the team.