There are a number of common claims that those who oppose investment in public transport and in particular the City Rail Link use to try and justify their ideological position. Claims like that it will cost a lot more than predicted, that not as many people will use it as predicted, that autonomous cars will magically solve the problem. All can be addressed but for this post I’m just going to look at one though, that technological changes will lots of people working from home. It’s something that’s long been dreamed about by many and obvious has some huge advantages for transport in that it removes the commute all together.
There have always been some people who work from home and some who due to the nature of their work will simply have to travel to a workplace however the target group for working from home is huge numbers of people who work in offices in places like the CBD or suburban office parks.
The great thing is that with the technology we have today it’s now even easier than ever for people to work not just from home. The computers in many people’s homes are often just as much or even more powerful that those provided by employers, documents can be easily shared, audio/visual communication is easy and the list goes on. So what’s happening with working from home trends?
This is one area where the census Travel to Work data is very useful. It’s not so great at looking at overall mode share for those that travel as it doesn’t take into account others who use our transport networks at the same time like students, those travelling for non-work purposes or even those already working however it is useful for comparing how many people work from home. The graph below shows the total number who worked from home in the census’ from 1981. I’ve also added data for Auckland which is available since 1996.
The pre 1996 figures come from the Stats NZ Yearbooks so I’m not sure if they counted working from home differently or if other factors are at play.
While more people than ever are working from home, how does that compare with the total number of people travelling to work on the census days. You will also notice I’ve included 1976 for which I could find the percentage but not the actually number of people.
So nationwide as a percentage less people are working from home now than in they did 1996 despite it being easier than ever to do so. Why is that happening?
Well in many ways businesses that rely on innovation to improve their productivity benefit from having people work in proximity to each other in the same way that the city as a whole does. This is because people exchange ideas and communicate much more freely when they are in the same office and that can help bring to life new ideas for solving problems. Even some of the biggest tech companies in the world who could arguably most easily have a distributed workforce recognise this and why so much money is put in to having people work in one location. IT’s even got to the point that last year Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stated she wants staff in the office rather than at home due to the benefits it provides.
To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.
For me there are also other reasons not to work at home, particularly if you work in an area that has a lot of other amenity e.g. retail and hospitality. The dramatic improvement in the CBD over the last decade or so is a good example of one of these places.
Of course this isn’t to say that we should always have to work from an office every single day. It sometimes depends on the task being performed and having flexibility to work around other activities or family is important but overall the percentage of people that work from home isn’t likely to substantially increase.
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This year I have been working from home about 40% of the time. But I still need to go into the office, as a major part of my job involves collaboration with others. I don’t think we are heading for one or the other, but a more flexible arrangement where we alter our work spaces to fit particular requirements. The kicker is when I do go into the office, it is by train, and I work there too!
When people trot out the tired old chestnut of “We will all be working at home soon anyway”, it shows that they are living in a fantasy land and have absolutely no understanding of human psychology. People work more efficiently when collaborating with others, and in a proximity where they can bounce ideas, have hallway conversations etc. Humans are fundamentally social creatures and thrive when we have a sense of community and are around other people. If we all worked at home and only communicated through the internet, the result would be inefficiency, stifled innovation, and sad and lonely workers.
Our planning needs to be based around encouraging community and embracing our social nature, not isolating us.
Staff who work from home can easily be replaced by someone in the Philippines or India. All that has changed is the distance.
Obviously this idea is a nonsense. I have always worked from home, but I never stayed at home all day. And despite all the technological changes the proportion of those ‘not commuting’ has been extraordinarily stable, which clearly shows that workplace isn’t a technologically bounded thing. Business after all is all about people, and there is no substitute for face to face contact for quality transactions, social or commercial. Pretty much the worst meetings in my experience are any with someone on a video or voice conference- so annoying. No new tech is going to change that.
Myth busted.
A point seldom mentioned is the employment relationship, ie employee vs consultant or contractor. The former has an ongoing relationship with his or her peers, is paid the same regardless of output, and the employer is entitled to some degree of direct control. OTOH, a self-employed person is primarily paid on deliverables, and the client can terminate at will. So to the extent that the vast majority of work relationships are employer/employee, the nominal 10% ratio isn’t going to change much any time soon.
I recall Sir Frank Holmes’ Planning Council making similar predictions to Walter Cronkite back in the late 80s. I didn’t believe him then and I don’t think much has changed since, except of course technology. What I truly appreciate today is that provided I have my smartphone and laptop I can work anywhere in the world at any time, and I do. Except for last Sunday.
As someone who “works from home” I hate it….I want a job where I leave home and earn my money then come back home and relax and not think about work. Working at home kinda removes the “home is wonderful” aspects when your phone is ringing all day and all night and during dinner.
Very True, My wife works from an upstairs bedroom, and just never :switches off” from work. It may work for those with an office in a sleepout on the back lawn. I would sooner work late, and then shut the door and come home.
As a service & maintenance electrician working in industry I really look forward to the day when I can carry out repairs to burnt-out electric motors, failed circuit-breakers, underground power cables, in factories where production has come to a standstill, all from the comfort of my lounge at home.
I can’t wait.
Well put. Reading through the replies one would think the only employment in this country is office based. This far from reality. I suspect that 40 – 50% have no option but to travel to a workplace. Think manufacturing, retail, service / maintenance to name a few…
Even with my “office” job, I would spend a good 50% of it meeting with people, workshopping ideas and visiting sites.
The idea that my admittedly quite academic ‘pencil pusher’ job could be done by sitting at home reading and writing journals is either insane or naive. By far the best way to exchange information and build consensus (or identify issues) is to sit down with the right people and talk it through for half an hour. In fact some of the most important ideas and decision making of my job happens over a cup of coffee, or indeed a beer after hours.
A few hours school from home in the morning all year and no more traffic jams
Or the use of local schools to educate offspring and walking there instead of driving them to ‘better’ schools.
Tamaki: “A few hours school from home in the morning all year and no more traffic jams”
This claim is often made – that if trips to school could be moved off the road there would be permanent free flowing traffic. A reasonable assumption to make when observing the free flowing traffic during the school holidays. However I suspect the only reason the traffic flows so well at this time is because, at two weeks, the school holidays are not long enough for people to adjust their behaviour to take advantage of the extra capacity in the roads. If school trips were permanently shifted off the road, then some people who otherwise would have taken public transport or travelled at a different time would instead drive at the peak and traffic would be back to the same level of congestion. There are good reasons to shift school trips off the road, but doing so will never create permanent free flowing traffic.
The best collaboration or sharing of ideas comes from reviewing the literature, which can easily be done from home.
Chatter across an open plan office is seldom well-evidenced, logical, or correct.
Give me references, or give me death – Lord Maths, 2014
From the Harvard Business Review:
“After deploying thousands of badges in workplaces ranging from pharmaceuticals, finance, and software companies to hospitals, we’ve begun to unlock the secrets of good office design in terms of density, proximity of people, and social nature. We’ve learned, for example, that face-to-face interactions are by far the most important activity in an office.”
http://hbr.org/2014/10/workspaces-that-move-people/ar/pr
In a decade-plus of working in various professional environments, Mr Lundberg, I can promise you I heard nothing in the office better than something I could have read in a journal.
The primary reason people value intra-office communication is that they haven;t actually accessed the incredible value provided by academic literature.
Most office systems are 20 years behind the leading edge in academia.
Academic journals can not provide the information required day to day in an office, how to help customers with problems, new ideas for pricing when competitors are taking your customers, and journals will not resolve conflicts between the competing demands staff meet in a typical day at work.
Seems only fair that I ask you for the evidence Mr Maths?
I don’t know what kind of job you do that academic articles can help so much, but it certainly wouldn’t help me as a commercial lawyer.
I don’t need to know theoretical stuff, I need to tap into other people’s real life, practical experiences as to what should be done in a real life situation. This isn’t usually a real legal question at all (it seldom is in law) it is usually more tactical or about how to handle people.
The very best way to handle that is face to face. It could happen by phone or email in a more limited way but it isn much more powerful face to face.
Me thinks Lord Maths is an academic “working” in the same ivory tower as the other dreamers.
I work in IT at a telco, we’ve tried a mix of WFH , videoconf and Instant Messaging, but sometimes getting everyone in a room and banging heads is the only way to fix a problem.
There are plenty of jobs that could be done from home but the biggest barrier to this is trust. Few employers would trust their staff to work unsupervised and too many employees are not worthy of that trust.
So funny, Maths, do you imagine that every job involves reading academic journals?
To find out, I suggest you get out a bit more….
Yeah touch challenging to install a feature wall 11m off of the ground from home.
“Yes, in the future, most Kiwis will have left the humdrum of the city for idyllic little hamlets like Twizel, where you can work from home thanks to video phones and hologram projectors.” – Professor Kenneth Cumberland
Yes, exactly, Cumberland was a city hater, one of those binary thinkers whose love of the countryside meant a loathing of anywhere with more than a few people in it. But his no doubt sincere advocacy for nature and the wild simply became a tireless promotion for suburbia. Suburbia; the great destroyer of wilderness and countryside. And for a professor of geography to wilfully deny the economic power of proximity to cities is extraordinary, as witnessed by the absurd notion that Twizel, a nowhere invented Hydro workers dorm, could ever be a meaningful contributor to a growing population’s needs is sadly hilarious.
Unfortunately he was very active with this view, never missing a chance to attack urban development and transit provision. Auckland University through the sprawl years was not a source of counterbalance to big business and central government plans, unlike many overseas ones, especially in Canada and Australia, but a naive cheerleader. With Prof C leading the charge.
“idyllic little hamlets like Twizel” – I have been to Twizel a number of times and to call it idyllic you would have to be someone who sees the world in a completely different way from me. You would have to really dislike people for a start and not find people interesting at all.
I would consider living in Twizel a form of cruel and unusual punishment. It is bleak and featureless place.
At least Twizel is walkable for it’s 1200 residents – “Shopping and sporting facilities are centrally located with green areas linking streets to provide safe pedestrian ways to the town centre.” http://www.twizel.info/
I’m not sure that I’d describe the McKenzie Basin, Southern Alps or Lake Ruataniwha as “bleak and featureless”, but neither would I want to live there.
Walkable once you’re there!
I had an uncle who lived there, working on the hydro scheme. He loved it – walk to the pub, stagger home safely, earn good money to pay for a sporty car to drive to town on your days off. lol
Isn’t it always claimed that the young yearn for the bright lights of the big smoke, and when they’ve been there for a few years, yearn for the beach or the countryside – the great retirement dream of packing up and moving to the beach/lake/country to surf/fish/relax. 😉
“McKenzie Basin, Southern Alps or Lake Ruataniwha” – no of course those are not bleak or featureless – but Twizel is.
On your comment below on young people – yes they do yearn for the beach not so sure about countryside. That might be why they live in NZ cities as opposed to European cities but I can’t see why that would require leaving a NZ city.
Christchurch, Dunedin, Tauranga, Wellington and Auckland all have access to excellent beaches. Let’s not discuss Hamilton.
This is possible, and gaining traction with tools such as lync becoming more common in the work place. This allows collaboration away from the office and is actually quite effective. There still remains one problem however. People like being around people, I believe offices will still be around, however we are heading towards a more flexible work place, we might not head to the office everyday, but we still will be there 2-3days a week at least.