
by Kate
An average commuter loses the equivalent of 9 days a year
"Roughly a quarter of American commutes are less than 15 minutes one way. On the other hand, nearly 17 percent of us have commutes that are 45 minutes or longer. And the prevalence of these long commutes -- and of really, really long commutes -- is growing."
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
The author cites Census data showing 4.4% of the workforce worked primarily at home in 2014 but that actually includes the self-employed. Employee-only telework (at least half-time) has grown more than 100% since 2005 and currently accounts for 2.8% of the workforce. Our estimate is that another 20% to 30% of the workforce telecommutes less regularly. Those are the folks we need to convince to skip the commute more frequently.

by Kate
Excellent report from LinkedIn on why people change jobs. Culture and Work-Life Balance among the reasons.
Attract, recruit and empower attractive active job seekers with 2015 insights from one of the world’s largest studies of 10K+ recent job
switchers.
Source: business.linkedin.com
The bottom line: compensation, advancement, and particularly for women better work environment/culture (41%) and work-life balance (26%).

by Kate
Schools teaching kids how to work remotely- a great way to prepare the future workforce
A growing share of the U.S. labor force works from home, and a handful of tech-savvy school districts in Alabama, Minnesota, and New Jersey have taken note.
Source: www.edweek.org
I wouldn't want to see full-time virtual schooling at the primary school level unless there was a serious replacement for the social aspects of education, but working remotely is definitely a skill they need to learn.

by Kate
Workplace Flexibility Increases Profits, Productivity and more says a global study of 8,000
Three quarters of companies worldwide have now introduced flexible working to enable employees to vary their hours and work from home or on the move
Source: workplaceinsight.net

by Kate
Think you saved money with your open plan office? Think again.
According to the New Yorker magazine, approximately 70% of all offices
now have an open floor plan rather than traditional private offices. Has
this massive redeployment of office space actually saved money?
Source: business.linkedin.com
This guy is singing my song. My version is that an employee's entire occupancy cost can be completely offset by an increase in productivity of just 8 minutes a day. Open plan isn't all bad, so long as there is plenty of other types of spaces available for group or individual work.