At-home mums (and dads), a latent workforce

Working around personal and family commitments and preferences has always been something I have often thought about. There is a large part of me that likes working the usual 9-5 in an office with others. I would say that I like the social interaction and the routine. For many others this is often just not an option for them.

I have different perspectives to this got from various experiences I have had over the years. For part of my teenage years, my mum did freelance book keeping from home for several clients which then later turned into a proper accounting practice. Soon after university I ran a computer bureau for a large accounting firm where all of the computer operators where woman and where I became aware of the juggling act women had to do when deciding to start a family.

After my wife and I had a few children this issue became real to me, until then it was something that affected others. We often have the opportunity cost discussion around my wide going back to work and how would we balance all the she things that she has to do and would like to do with making time available for work and the logistics of going out to work.

After finding myself a casualty of the credit crisis, I started a consulting company servicing the industry I have been working in for some time. Some of the services I offer are assisting business to make use of various outsourced technology solutions and building better operational processes to bring costs down and make it scalable. I delve into areas of cloud computing and other virtual computing concepts. This further leads of to implications like how do we define the concept of where and office is, what should constitute an office etc.

In the news and online there is a convergence of peoples live style choices and available technologies which will allow for remote and flexible work arrangements. What interests me is not how this complements the existing work from home, set you own hours make yourself rich business models. Rather how traditional bricks and mortar organisations can change to benefit themselves and their employees.

I am sure there are many studies centred on this and all sorts of data available. But what I see in the solutions I advise and what’s going on in companies around me is very exciting. I would love to get involved with a project that will invest in an infrastructure to enable people to working remote and across all time zones. This is more than what technology can allow; I see this agency of people all with different skills willing and able to do all manner of tasks on their terms.

If you are involved in making this happen right now, or are purely interested in the topic or have information to share, please leave a comment or get in touch.