The end of 9-to-5?

Last week a co-worker sent me an article from Time.com about one of the emerging trends in the American workplace: Remote work. Taking advantage of laptops, wi-fi, and VPN is a topic that has been discussed at our workplace for the last few years. Still, our department, like most companies in the US, still largely follows the traditional office, 9-to-5 arrangement.

As a military spouse looking for work at my husband's post (and in the surrounding areas), I am thinking more about remote work, and wishing that remote work was the norm, not the exception. There quite a few roles in corporate America, except for jobs in live customer service (e.g. Retil), that cannot be performed remotely. I believe that if remote work did become the norm, it would be a boon to military spouses.

A cursory review of the locations of most military posts shows that quite a few of them are located away from large urban areas, where most of the available jobs are. Especially in these hard economic times, the chances of finding a job in smaller towns are much lower. Even if you are close to a decent size city, the jobs available there may not fit your skill set. Remote work would expand the potential jobs a military spouse get. Not only that, but it would mean that the military spouse would not have to find another job when the next PCS came.

I have often wondered why most companies are so weary of allowing their employees to work from home, in spite of the benefits it can bring. Personally, I think that it is because of a "when the cat's away the mice will play" mentality. There seems to be a perception that workers who are at home will simply not perform. I don't think that's true, at least not across the board. Work from home may not be for everyone. Some people enjoy the separation of their work lives from their personal ones, some may find the home environment too distracting. But those who cannot concentrate at home and cannot perform, are likely to be marginal performers in the office setting as well. Anyone who has worked in a cube-farm knows that the office has its own set of distractions that have to be tuned out if work is to get done. Even in a office setting, with a manager breathing down the employee's neck, you can have under performers. I just don't think that completely shying away from offering remote work will cure a company from performance issues.

Considering how beneficial remote work would be to military spouses, perhaps the Government could offer insentives to companies who not only hire military spouses, but offer flexible work environments. We can only hope. :)