The below is part of an article published by Mainstreet Magazine. The article covers 25 trends that they believe will change the way we do business. Telework is number 10. Telework, the article says, will achieve a part time status in which many employees will work part time in the home and use shared space in the office. What do you think? Will this be different industry to industry or will the type of job you have determine the amount of time you work at home?
10. Telework Has a Part-Time Future
By the year 2010, more than half of American wage earners will spend more than two days a week working outside the office, reports the Sulzer Infrastructure Services firm in London. Today, 28 million people “telework” under formal company policies–a leap from 4 million in 1990–and millions more work informally out of the office one or more days a week. As inexpensive broadband Internet access and mobile technologies take hold, the number will increase, says Toni Kistner, managing editor of Net.Worker, a division of Network World magazine. “The technology has steamrolled ahead, making it cheaper and easier to work from anywhere.”
It will be rare even 10 years from now, however, to find people in any profession who telework five days a week. When teleworking took off in the 1990s, people talked about how the workforce would be dispersed and offices would shut down. That hasn’t happened, Kistner says. As the economy improves, companies may reduce their real estate, encouraging employees to share offices. That will create open work spaces that accommodate a flexible part-time telework environment. But there will always be a central location where people come to work, she says. “Some people need to come to the office to stay connected.”
In professional jobs, teleworking is already common. With technological upgrades and guidance, the trend soon will take hold in fields such as nursing and call-center management. New kinds of work that combine technology and service also will be more feasible as technology improves, says Sirkka Heinonen, senior research scientist at VTT Communities, the biggest technological research center of the Finnish government. As the number of senior citizens in the industrial world rises, for example, many will want to live at home as long as they can. “Some kind of telework service providers to monitor these people at home will likely grow up around this need,” she predicts. “These won’t be traditional nurses, who are always on-site, but they will be telepresent and will probably visit [patients] physically from time to time.”
To see the entire article go to http://immediatereleasemedia.blogspot.com/2011/01/business-today.html . It’s interesting.
Virtual Ideas 
Hello, I am optimistically going to disagree with your statement “It will be rare even 10 years from now, however, to find people in any profession who telework five days a week.” I strongly believe with technological advancements and the way the world (businesses, consumers, families, etc.) are communicating – that that number will be much higher. Additionally, with the telework bill recently passed – and the Federal government on board, more companies will be apt to follow suit. There are so many advantages for a large percentage of office workers – that it is insane for companies not to at least consider or test it out. I recently wrote a post outlining the many benefits that I invite you to read and comment on as well. http://blog.vipdesk.com/2011/01/13/the-benefits-of-a-virtual-workforce/
The statement that “It will be rare even 10 years from now, however, to find people in any profession who telework five days a week.” was not my oppinion. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear. I agree that work at home will be more main stream. The benefits of work at home are too significant to the business, employee and the environment to be ignored. I also agree that the telework bill will spear head a greater interest in telework and cause organizations both inside and outside government to take a closer look.
It’s been three years since you posted this article and that the new TEA has been enacted. Will you be posting a follow-up with any changes or confirmations to your earlier predictions?
-Ray Osborne
Industry Correspondent.