Eric Lawton has been kind enough to send me a newspaper article about a proposed teleworking office centre in Barrie, Ontario which seems to answer precisely the suggestion I made in 235. Homeworking needs the customer approach. In my posting, I mentioned that some employers in England, such as British Telecom (BT), which has been encouraging some of its employees to work from home, are finding that they subsequently opt to return to the main office, even at the cost of the time and expense of commuting.
I suggested that BT should adopt a customer approach and actually ask their employees what they would ideally like to do. I suggested that they would still like to avoid the commuting but be able to work in a social group. Furthermore, I suggested that this would be enabled in the future by local offices catering for a variety of employees of different firms and the self-employed. Furthermore, a fortune could be made by any entrepreneur-builder who could build such distance-working facilities in villages and housing estates far from the metropolises.
Well, it would seem that one of the first of these aimed at the private market was already being planned in Barrie, Ontario, enabling people to avoid the long commute to Toronto.
Far be it from me to criticise such an imaginative proposal as described below, but if I were to have a chat with John Cameron I would gently suggest that he ought to add child-care facilities for the 120 people who are planned for at SuiteWorks. However, he has been very sensible indeed to include common eating (and presumably relaxation) areas in his plans because this, I believe, will be even more important than the attraction of avoiding commuting.
I think that the customer demand (that is, by both firms and self-employed) for such localised tele-working centres will increase tremendously over the years, particularly as fuel costs start rising through the roof. In England, this could recreate village life, giving them local shops and schools again. This would be a wonderful reversal of the trends of the last 200 years which have largely destroyed any sense of local community and mutual help between neighbours.
Keith Hudson
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A HIGH-TECH SHORT-CUT
Roberta Avery
BARRIE -- After 15 years of making the daily 180-kilometre round trip commute down Highway 400 to Toronto from Barrie, John Cameron knew there had to be another way.
Working from a home office seemed like a possible solution until he tried it. "The social isolation and the distractions of working in a home office are a real challenge,'' said Cameron, 46. If you add the stigma attached to doing business with someone perceived to be working at the kitchen table and a growing concern about a lack of Workers Compensation coverage for injuries suffered while working at home, you have a niche market for an alternative, he said.
That's what Cameron and his partner George Horhota are now betting on with the launch of SuiteWorks a high-tech 120-workstation telework centre to be built in the south end of Barrie and slated for opening next summer. Modeled on telework centres in the Washington D.C. area, SuiteWorks will offer work stations and private offices equipped with high-tech systems including Voice Over IP and interactive white boards that will keep workers in touch with their Toronto offices.
While the work stations at the telework centres in the Washington area are leased by government agencies that don't have enough office space in the city centre, SuiteWorks is aimed at the private sector. The City of Barrie estimates that more than 30,000 people make the daily commute to Toronto from Barrie, so Cameron anticipates demand for the 120 spaces at the wired telework centre, which will be housed in a warehouse-style building. "We offer all the advantages of not have having to commute without the distractions of working in a home office,'' said Cameron.
Harry Zarek's company, Compugen Inc., was one of the first to sign up for space in SuiteWorks. Compugen has 400 workers in offices across Canada providing computer products and services, and Zarek said SuiteWorks monthly rates, which are expected to start at $800 per month, are a fraction of the cost of setting up and running a new office.
"It will have all the high-tech tools of the trade, so effectively it will be the same as if the staff are right here in the office (in Richmond Hill),'' said Zarek. "And such services as high quality printing will be available right there." For Zarek, who has committed to two workstations at SuiteWorks, an attraction is that his company will have access to a boardroom. "That means we won't have to ask our out-of-town customers to travel all the way to Toronto for a sales presentation.''
Cameron and partner George Horhota, his former colleague at BCE Emergis Inc., have convinced friends and former colleagues to come up with the $2 million needed to launch the project. "It will be the first telework centre in Canada, but we believe it's the way of the future,'' said Horhota.
SuiteWorks will offer "stay in touch solutions'' including desktop video, the electronic whiteboards, audio conferencing, Web and video conferencing. Phone service via Voice Over IP on a computer means that calls can be transferred to Barrie as a local call and the worker will be able to keep in touch with head office without worrying about long distance charges, said Cameron.
Real time white boards will mean staff at a company's Toronto office will be able to view sketches as they are being drawn by a worker at SuiteWorks. The design includes common eating areas, which will help workers overcome the social isolation many feel when they work from home, said Cameron.
Horhota, who has been commuting to Barrie from his home in Toronto to help Cameron set up SuiteWorks has discovered another reason why he believes that workers will be asking their bosses to rent them space at SuiteWorks. "It's not a very pleasant commute, the weather is five or six degrees colder up there and you encounter freezing rain and fog on a regular basis. A drive on the 400 can leave you shaken up,'' he said.
The plan is SuiteWorks to be unlike a home office; the aim is to make it an extension of the workplace and this addresses concerns about Workers Compensation for injuries on the job, said Cameron. SuiteWorks will offer a range of high-tech security including smart card access, thumbprint activated desktops and secure message management. There will be a receptionist during regular business hours who will take messages and escort visitors. There will be shower facilities for joggers and cyclists. SuiteWorks will also have IT support staff on the site as well as secretarial staff available on a pay-for- service basis.
The arrangement will help companies retain staff, predicts Cameron. "Companies that face losing top performers who don't want to commute any longer will now be able to offer that employee an alternative,'' he said.
Zarek agrees. "It makes a lot of sense to put offices where people live instead of at city centres and near airports,'' he said.
Toronto Star -- 13 January 2004
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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