Are you ready to tell your boss you are working from home?

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to design digital workplaces or “offices in the cloud.” These environments enable companies to allow flexible and remote working for their teams. I also teach the digital literacy, fluency, communication and collaboration skills needed to work in these modern technology-rich workplaces.

In this rather humorous Stanford TED talk Prof Nicholas Bloom relates the findings of a study they did with China’s largest travel agency Ctrip

The study was about allowing employee’s to work from home. The study lasted 9 months and tracked those allowed to work from home vs those that were required to come into the office.

In this TED talk he describes allowing teams to work from anywhere, including home as “a future-looking technology.”

What were the key, pretty dramatic, findings? Watch the TED talk to hear first hand.

It is, however, important to understand that in order to experience these benefits there are three things that need to be in place:

1. A well designed digital workplace
2. A trustworthy team &
3. The correct management style