If not, does the idea appeal to you?
What are the advantages of working from home?
And the disadvantages?
Self-study activity:
Watch this short BBC news clip about teleworking that I came across through St George International towards the end of the summer and answer the questions below about it.
1 What company does Carol work for?
2 What disadvantage of going out to work does she mention?
3 What benefit does she mention?
4 Are Carol’s views on teleworking widely shared?
5 Claire mentions several advantages of working in an office with other people. Note down one.
6 What traditional method of controlling employees does the man after Claire mention?
You can check your answers by reading the transcript below.
The video above is part of an article on St George International blog Working from home: Business English. Please make a point of droping by St George International to read the article in full, where you will have the opportunty of getting acquainted with essential vocabulary about this topic.
St George International blog is a must for intermediate-to-advanced language students. The entries they publish on a regular basis comprise all the skills and also touch on the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation systems of the language.
Their latest feature is the publication of podcasts, where some teachers from St George International talk about current affairs and cultural topics in an unscripted way, which gives learners the opportunity of getting exposed to authentic English.
You can find another video activity on this blog about teleconferences here.
Teleworking was supposed to revolutionise the way we work but it seems that some employers don’t trust their staff to work from home and some teleworkers miss the gossip and their colleagues so much that they’d rather be in the office. Here’s our business correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.
Every morning Carol Mac makes the coffee and then sets off for work. It’s a short journey up the stairs. She’s among the Surrey county council staff who are now allowed to work from home.
I can get up in the morning and come straight into my office. I don’t have to sit in the traffic for hours and I can fit my work life around my home life. I’m trusted by my employers to do this. There are lots of benefits for me.
But a new report from the TUC says Carol is in a small minority. Teleworking is the revolution that hasn’t happened.
At the council’s headquarters Claire Holloway has decided teleworking isn’t for her. There are too many things she’d miss about the office.
I think you miss the office banter, the sort of chat with people, getting to know a huge number of different people who you wouldn’t probably come across anyway, and just it’s good fun to work here.
And while this employer sees benefits in allowing staff to work from home others appear unwilling to let them out of their sight.
Employers want to make sure that they’re getting value for money out of their employees. The old traditional measure was having a jacket on the back of the chair. That has got to change and people’s way of managing their staff has got to be far more sophisticated, and a lot more trust involved.
Technology now makes it possible for millions of us to work from home rather than in an office if we want to but it seems many employers and their staff are yet to be convinced that this is a revolution worth joining.
Rory Cellan-Jones BBC news.
