22 October 2008 | Posted inBlog News & Updates, Featured, Sustainable Design
Have Laptop, Work Anywhere
Today, my office is the dining room table.
Today is “work-from-home-Wednesday” – one of my favorite days of the week! HOK Advance Strategies highly advocates alternative work to our clients as part of our workplace solutions offering, and also whenever we talk sustainability. This year, the DC team decided it was time to practice what we preach. There are six of us in the group and we have only five desks. We decided that we travel enough that there is usually someone out of the office…and if no one was travelling,someone would work from home. All we really need are a laptop and a phone, so it’s easy enough!
Each one of us has the option to work from home whenever it fits our schedule. I try to work from home once a week (I like Wednesday for a couple of reasons: it breaks the week in half, the dog walker doesn’t come this day, it’s typically a teleconference-heavy day, and I’m not missing any of my favorite classes at the gym).
Working from home is great for a number of reasons:
- We save money at work (one less desk means less rent/lower overhead = bigger bonus).
- HOK DC is an open office – which is great for collaboration, but makes concentration tough – working from home is great for concentration.
- Green benefits: less real estate required, no transportation to work, no hairdrying (check out my post on The Green Workplace).
- Personal benefit (work/life balance, saving all that time used for commuting).
Due to travel and meetings, this is the first time this month I’ve had the chance to work from home, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Today I’ll be burried in binders of background information on a new project, sitting in on a long-distance learning event, and practicing for my presentation at NeoCon East next week. And taking a lunchtime doggie walk, too.
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Thanks for the blurb about “working from home”. Archtecture seems a little behind on this, at least the DC office. For example, currently there is no “Working from Home” Revit option available. Any ideas on how to get the architects on this trend also?
Happy working from home day to you!!
If my internet wasn’t out at my place this morning i know i would be working from my breakfast table and not in the office that’s for sure
In many organizations, working from home starts off as an “organic” movement – i.e., one person gets permission from their boss. People see that it’s working and more people ask permission.
In order to get a true work-from-home program going, there needs to be support from HR, IT, and management. Maybe for those of you that are tied to Revit, you could start by working with the CAD managers to see if there is a way to work through the licencing/file sharing issues first. Then start working on the policy issues
What about other offices? I know lots of Ad Strad folks from across the company work from home periodically, but not sure on the architecture/interiors/planning folks. Anyone?
This is such a great idea.
With Revit it certainly becomes difficult b/c of the lack of good performance form the Dell laptops. Hmm, this brings me back to the Macbook Pro as a matter of fact, where the Macbook running Windows and Revit beat the performance of the Workstation PC’s running the same performance. So, case closed. Get an Apple and a license and work from home!!!
I love this concept, although in my marketing position working from home is not always a feasible option (because of the needed interactions and access to printers, etc.). Eventually, though, I hope this is something that I could move to once a week. Good for you, Jodi!