The New “Working From Home”
Make working from home work for you
Creating an office environment within the home is easier than ever, thanks to the many advances in technology. Long gone are the days of file cabinets and Rolodexes. These days, a successful business can be effectively run with a laptop and a simple desk tucked away in the corner of the living room. Many work-from-home executives regularly utilize Skype, which can eliminate the need to travel for face-to-face meetings. Others have found social media to be an excellent tool to market their business from in front of their computers. And then there are, of course, the smart phones.
“My iPhone has saved me on many occasions,” says Alison Bonaguro, a freelance entertainment journalist who works out of her home in the western suburbs. “It’s way more feasible to answer an email or take a quick call at my son’s basketball game if I have to.”
Alison is one of the many women whose young children caused them to ultimately follow the working from home route.
“The kids attended school across the street, and I did all of my work while they were at school,” says Amy, who worked as a copywriter before freelance writing full time. “When they’d come home from school, I closed my laptop and became their mother.”
Commuting concerns also often top the list as one of the main reasons more and more women begin to consider working from home. As director of Information Services at Brook Electrical, Kendra Frigo’s often agonizing two hour commute in traffic from Lincolnshire to Naperville forced the mother of two to seriously consider the option of working from home.
“I always had this fear that I’d be easily distracted or simply not motivated if I started working from home,” remarks Kendra. “I also had this fear that my co-workers would think I wasn’t working effectively from home, which in hindsight, made me work harder. “
“I regularly invite co-workers to my home for periodic team meetings to not only help us focus on our goals but also show them the value and benefits of working from home,” adds Shelley, who utilizes a separate entrance into her exquisite home office. “We regularly stress to our clients the importance of ‘brand joy.’ Establishing my own work environment with those brand values in mind allowed me to come up with my ideal workspace.”
More:
Moms at Work: What Matters Now
is a graduate of Northern Illinois University Journalism and has worked for seven years in Chicago’s advertising community before becoming a stay-at-home mom in 2001. For the next seven years, between changing dirty diapers and drying tears, she began writing again. She covers a variety of issues for TCW, including health and fitness, dining, and business and workplace trends.
