The Workplace of the Future

When Matt Simmons does presentations on peak oil, he often recommends that one of the ways to build personal and community resilience is a restructuring of the workforce so that most people can telecommute instead of driving to the office every day. I couldn’t agree more!

I’ve been a freelance graphic designer and have worked from home for the past 15 years. Two years ago I scaled back my design work to allow time in my schedule for another “work-from-home” job – a salaried copywritng position with a completely virtual company.

This is not a pyramid-scheme company or anything shady. It’s a real company with 80 employees all over the country doing such tasks as IT, marketing, writing, customer service, data analysis, production management, project management and video production. The name of the company is Hot Topic Media and we create and sell relationship advice and entrepreneurial advice eBooks, CDs and DVDs.

You may be wondering how a company can function successfully for many years when there is no central office or direct supervision of its workers. It’s not easy, but the primary reason our company does so well is because the owner of the company carefully screens whom he hires — only people with proven ability to be self-motivated and performance-driven. We communicate through regularly scheduled conference calls (using FreeConferenceCall.com), chat, and of course email. Once a quarter the team leaders meet in Los Angeles at a hotel to discuss concerns and goals. We set personal 90-day goals and help each other meet them. We don’t have titles and there is no official hierarchy, because those things create “bad attitudes” according to the owner of the company.

This business model has worked for our company and we are thriving. Even though the economy is slumping, people are still buying relationship and business advice. Apparently statistics show that in troubled economic times, people have more incentive, time and motivation to improve their personal relationships and start or ramp up their own business. What I like about my company is that it doesn’t create a lot of STUFF. Most of what we sell are digital products (eBooks or online videos or teleclasses), with some CDs and DVDs. Richard Heinberg says that a future resilient economy will be based more on services than products anyway. Or should be.

Everything you can think of as a benefit to working from home is true. You have more autonomy. You can do errands when things are slow. You get more done because you don’t have endless meetings or distractions (although you have to discipline yourself from dinking around too much online). You can fit in exercise anytime. You don’t have to travel to work in traffic, snowstorms or during gas shortages. You get to be there for your kids when they come home from school.

There are a couple of downfalls of working from home. You really can feel isolated, so it’s important to schedule a lot of social time after work. You don’t get to brainstorm ideas as much as you would over the “watercooler” in a regular office setting, so creativity has to be nurtured constantly. It’s great for introverts, but I’m not so sure extroverts would like it that much. Maybe in the future neighbors can share an office in their homes in order to have the feeling of co-workers.

Telecommuting and virtual companies are the cutting edge of a future workforce, and are a part of a more resilient and sustainable community.

If anyone wants to know more about working from home or the company I work for, please post a comment on this page.