For people who don’t like working in an office there is now another option. Read the text to see what it is. Check the definition at the bottom of the words in bold to help you understand the text. Don’t forget to vote in our quiz too!
During the London Olympics a large number of people decided to work from home. They normally worked everyday in the centre of London. The idea was to make more space on the trains and underground for tourists and athletes. The people included politicians, managers and average office workers. Around 1.5 million London workers in total became teleworkers. How can they work from home? Well, nowadays, thanks to the internet a lot of work can be done anywhere you have a laptop and an internet signal. As long as you can answer your emails, finish your reports, prepare a presentation you are OK. Thanks to video conferencing you can also have meetings, give and attend presentations and take part in conferences. Telecommuting sounds perfect! Not travelling to work means no expensive train fares, no long, boring commuting and you save a lot of time. On top of that you get to stay at home all day or go out and do your work in a cafe. Many remote workers do this and are called nomad workers as they work anywhere they want. You may see them in a bar, a library or even in the park.Companies now quite like homeworking. BT has 11,000 home-office workers. They have saved around 60 million pounds. It’s certain that other companies will follow suit if this helps them to reduce costs and make more money. Is it the future? Will we all be working from home, a restaurant or the pub in a few years time? I’m not sure. You won’t really see or speak to anyone. If you live alone you might never have any contact with people. Also, what happens if your internet doesn’t work or your computer breaks? One answer is telework centres where you can go to use their facilities, their office space and even meet other people. It’s true that almost every company can benefit from teleworkers but they would save even more money if they hired cheaper staff. If telecommuting grows because of cost saving then why not just hire staff in a cheaper country?
Working at home language
- teleworkers
- people who work for a company but do the work at home
- work from home
- to do your normal office work but at home
- telecommuting
- the act of working from home for a company
- commuting
- the travelling that you do from your home to work everyday
- remote workers
- people who can choose when and where they work
- nomad workers
- people who can work anywhere they use their laptop
- homeworking
- the act of doing work at home
- home-office
- working from your own home and not at your company’s office
- telework centres
- business centres for teleworkers to use as an office
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