No place like home

O2 has just released results from a survey conducted by Behaviour and Attitudes with over 300 SMEs. Interestingly, the results indicate that the number of SME directors teleworking or working from home has doubled in the last five years.

According to Alan Brown, business sales director with Telefónica O2 Ireland, “We may be witnessing a perfect storm of better mobile office solutions, more flexible attitudes to working and the need for greater productivity, which is creating this upsurge in teleworking,”

The survey found that 48% of SME directors in Ireland telework at least one day a month, while 26% of SME directors work from home more than four days a month.

Interestingly 23% of SME directors predict that teleworking will rise in the future.

According to the research over a quarter of respondents who telework now run their entire business from home. Brown adds that, “The research would indicate that senior SME executives are seeing the benefits that teleworking can offer them in terms of convenience, productivity, cost effectiveness and control”

The absence of office interruption was listed by 1 in 5 respondents as a reason to telework, 15% said they telework to concentrate on large projects and just 3% cited traffic and commuting as their reason to telework.

We spoke to Donal Brady about how entrepreneurs can effectively manage their work/life balance, you can check out the video here.

Here at allaboutbusiness we regularly catch up with entrepreneurs and SME owners and we have noticed this same pattern. Why do you think so many business people are starting to work from home?