Contest: New Ways to Work

Elance, a Web 2.0 site for finding online work and online workers, is sponsoring a contest to recognize the most inspirational real-world demonstrations of new ways of working--the kind of work that takes place “completely online.”

Today, an estimated 37 million American workers are independent contractors, part-time or temporary staffers, or self-employed. This represents 31% of the workforce. In June, Money magazine predicted that we're moving toward "The Age of the Temp," where one in four workers will be a contingent worker.

It certainly looks like we're heading that way. Linda Stern reported in Newsweek that "Some 2.5 million full-time jobs have evaporated in the last 13 months, contributing to what's being called the "gig economy." And last year, "the number of people working part-time because they couldn't find full-time work almost doubled from 4.5 million to nearly 8 million."

The fine print: The Grand Prize winner will get a year's worth of health insurance premiums or $10,000 in cash. he contest began on Labor Day, but I only ran across it today. All entries must be posted by 11:59:59 pm PT on December 1, 2009. Details of the contest and how to enter can be found on the Elance blog site.

CES survey shows telework growth

Almost two in five employed U.S. online adults (37% of the workforce) work from home at least once a month, according to new research from the Consumer Electronics Association.

According to the The Telework and the Technologies Enabling Work Outside Corporate Walls study, the average teleworker plans to spend at least $925 over the next year on technology products to help them work from home. That figure surprised me. It seems to indicate that lots of companies are still expecting their workers to fund their own telework setup. The study revealed that only a third (34%) have access to an employer-provided computer or other IT technology at home and 31% have access to an employer-provided communication device, such as a phone or fax machine.

Your new commute

I LOVE this poster! I found it on the Facebook page for Commuter Connections, a program coordinated by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Vacation deficit

There's a great post on the World Changing blog about the need for vacations, family time, time for solitude. A fact that led the story especially caught my attention:

The United States is the only nation other than the Guyanas, Nepal, and Myanmar without a paid-vacation law. Thirty percent of Americans don’t get paid vacation; half of us get one week or less.

What can we do about this? Well, the people at Take Back Your Time are launching a multi-pronged campaign, which includes:

• Guaranteed paid leave for parents for the birth or adoption of a child
  
• At least one week of paid sick leave for all workers
  
• A minimum of three weeks of paid annual vacation leave for all workers
  
• Limiting compulsory overtime
  
• Making Election Day a holiday
  
• Making it easier for Americans to choose part-time work

Jack and Suzy’s 20th century advice

In a recent BusinessWeek column, Jack and Suzy Welch wrote a letter to this year’s graduating college class. They were handing out advice on how to succeed in this economy. Their counsel made sense until they came out in favor of “Being There.” Here’s what they wrote:

And if you're thinking of working from home two or three days a week because "it's so easy" and "it doesn't really matter," slap yourself for being unrealistic. Because if you ever want to be a leader, being online is fine but being there is imperative.

… if you're a new employee hoping to achieve work-life balance, we strongly suggest you hold that thought. Hold it, that is, until you've earned some chits with a nice, long run of great performance. In the brave new world of 9%-plus unemployment, flexibility is a reward, not an entitlement.

Their advice makes me cross. If “being there” is so important, then why do successful companies like Cisco, MySQL and Capitol One have such a large proportion of remote workers? They save money because they need less real estate to house their employees. And their employees are less stressed, more focused and happier. After all, happier cows make better cheese. Can’t this work for humans too?

More information at:

Cisco Study Finds Telecommuting Significantly Increases Employee Productivity, Work-Life Flexibility and Job Satisfaction, June 26, 2009.


TOP 10 MYTHS ABOUT MOBILE WORK, Sun Open Work Services Group, August 2008


MANAGING IN A VIRTUAL ORGANIZATION, Sun Open Work Services Group, August 2008


MySQL: Workers in 25 countries with no HQ, FORTUNE, June 1, 2006


Capital One: Going Mobile, HQ, Winter 2009

Videoconferencing parrots

Joe Sharkey, who writes for The New York Times, commented on the growing use of Skype for videoconferencing in a recent article.

He hoped to convince his editor to meet virtually via Skype and avoid the grueling trip from Arizona to NYC. No luck.

But the section of the article that hit me was the part about his two parrots. They love videoconferencing! He writes:

The parrots are early adapters, following the screen image, replying vocally, dancing with joy when motivated. They seem to get it — except that the chatty African grey evidently believes that I am actually inside my wife’s laptop and marches behind the screen to peck at it and get me out. I mean, they’re birds, after all.

Have you experienced anything similar with your pets when videoconferencing?

What to do with your cubicle on a slow business day

Earlier this month, TIME ran a special report on “The Future of Work: 10 Ways Your Job Will Change.” One of the predictions was, no surprise, the end of the office cubicle. The office will no longer be needed, the reporters wrote: “The need to actually show up at an office that consists of an anonymous hallway and a farm of cubicles or closed doors is just going to fade away. It's too expensive, and it's too slow.”

The NBC comedy The Office invited its fans to send in photos of silliness in their workspaces. TIME published a gallery of some of the best. Most involved papering over every available space with printouts, sticky notes, tinfoil, photocopies--even cardboard. A couple of others filled an office or cubicle with balloons or packing peanuts.

The entries didn't appear all that creative, but maybe that's the point.