Staying Home Is Paying Off

By Janice Castro

Like many of their competitors in the computer industry, Robin and Tom Bennett sometimes work 18 hours a day. But when the 30-year-old founders of Polar Engineering, a custom software firm, step outside the office, they do not have to contend with jostling lunch crowds or bumper-to-bumper commutes. Instead, the married couple can take quiet strolls through 25 acres of birch and spruce forest. Reason: their office is in their three-bedroom, 3,500-sq.- ft. home on Alaska's remote Kenai peninsula. The nearest neighbor lives half a mile away, and now and then a moose wanders into the yard. "There are days when I wish I had someone to talk to," says Robin, who along with Tom spent eight years working in California's bustling Silicon Valley after they graduated from Stanford University. "But every time I look out the window, I'm glad I live here. We enjoy working at home."

So do a sharply rising number of American professionals. In all kinds of settings across the U.S., from country houses to suburban high-rise apartments, more and more people need only take a few steps from their breakfast tables to their desks to start a day's work. Of course, working at home for pay has been around for as long as women have taken in knitting, doctors have put up shingles on their houses and writers have set up typewriters in their dens. But the advent of personal computers and other advanced technology has vastly expanded the range of occupations that can be successfully pursued in studies or basements. The swelling ranks of stay-at- homers include management consultants, stockbrokers, newsletter publishers, advertising directors, energy engineers, urban planners and graphic designers. The number of home professionals, which now totals 9 million, according to the Manhattan-based Link Resources research firm, has been growing at a rate of more than 15% a year and is expected to hit 13 million by 1990, or 11.4% of the U.S. work force.

About 90% of home professionals are entrepreneurs who have started their own businesses or work for larger companies on a contract basis. The fastest- growing category, however, is that of the so-called telecommuter -- a homebound but salaried worker on a corporate payroll. The rise of telecommuting has been predicted by futurists ever since home computers appeared a decade ago, but the phenomenon is only now beginning to catch on. Since 1982 the number of corporate employees working at home has ballooned from 20,000 to 600,000, according to the Los Angeles-based Center for Futures Research. Link claims that the roster of major companies that offer telecommuting has expanded from 200 to 350 since 1984. Among them: American Express, Johnson & Johnson, J.C. Penney, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and IBM.

Many of the new telecommuters and home entrepreneurs are women who want to spend more time with their children. Typical is Bonnie Figgatt, 38, of Madison, Conn., who works at home as a planning manager for the Travelers Cos., the corporate parent of the insurance and financial-services firm. Even though she must drive her 18-month-old son Thomas to a nearby baby-sitter every workday, Figgatt has more time for him in the morning and evening because she no longer has to commute 35 miles each way to company headquarters in Hartford. She finds her new life comparatively relaxing: "I don't miss the daily rat race, the endless meetings, the constant distractions at the office."

Among the millions of home entrepreneurs are many former managers who were laid off by corporations in the recent wave of cost cutting. Drake Beam Morin, the largest U.S. firm devoted to helping laid-off employees, estimates that during the past four years as many as 1.2 million middle- and upper-level managers have lost their jobs. Those who subsequently launch their own businesses often find it cheaper to use their homes, at least at first, rather than rent office space.

The proliferation of home offices would not have been possible without the electronic revolution. By using computers linked by telephone lines, home professionals can rapidly exchange information with bosses or clients. Whatever appears on the computer screen, from reports and statistics to maps and charts, can be transferred to paper through the use of compact printers. Copies of documents can be electronically transmitted over telephone lines by facsimile machines. Jeffry Gardner, 44, who operates an advertising agency out of his split-level home in Centerport, N.Y., has an array of gadgetry, < including a personal computer, a video camera and a facsimile machine. Says he: "I can't imagine how I could run this business from home without technology. It has liberated us from the constraints of the office." That liberation comes at a price: start-up costs for a home office can reach $2,000 for furnishings and supplies. A computer costs an additional $1,500 or more, a personal copier around $400.

The residential-office boom has created enormous profit opportunities for the makers of office machines and supplies. Last year home professionals bought $15 billion worth of equipment, up 15% from the year before. They spent $7.6 billion for telephone equipment and services, $3.2 billion for computers, $3.1 billion for other electronic gear, such as copiers and cassette recorders, and $110 million for pieces of furniture, including file cabinets, swivel chairs and desks. Many companies are zeroing in on this market. Canon, for example, has advertised its personal copiers extensively on TV. AT&T, which makes 66% of its two-line telephone sales to home professionals, is now conducting its second survey of the market.

People who work at home report several advantages. Bonnie Figgatt estimates that she saves at least $2,000 a year by not having to drive to work, go out to lunch as often, buy as many dressy clothes or run up her cleaning bills. Other pleasures are more personal than financial. "It's a lovely thing to be sitting there, with no makeup on, coffee cup in one hand, closing a deal on the phone," says Beverly Neuer Feldman, 60, a Los Angeles writer who has given seminars and taught college classes about the art and craft of working at home.

In suburban Chicago, Entrepreneur Barbara Brabec notes that she likes the independence that home businesses can provide. "I could never work for anyone else," she says. Originally a craftsmaker, Brabec now runs a busy desktop publishing operation out of her home, using a computer, of course. She has written four books about home business and publishes the quarterly newsletter National Home Business Report (circ. 3,000).

Working at home, however, is hardly problem free. People often miss the intellectual stimulation and socializing that occur in office settings. Many report that they have trouble sticking to the business at hand, especially when no one is around to see them cheat by taking a nap or turning on the TV set.

Some telecommuters fear they will be passed over for promotions because they ) never see their bosses. Managers who can no longer look over employees' shoulders worry about losing control over their work. Several firms, including Travelers and Mountain Bell telephone company in Denver, have decided to give managers special training courses before putting them in charge of telecommuting workers. For one thing, bosses need to learn how to measure actual results rather than visible activity.

In some cases telecommuting may benefit companies more than the workers. Karen Nussbaum, executive director of 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women, claims that many women telecommuters are working unreasonably long hours without overtime pay, doing computerized piecework in what she calls "electronic sweatshops." One of the most troubled telecommuting programs was set up by California-Western States Life Insurance in Sacramento. Eight women, all veteran Cal-West claims processors, sued the firm, asking for $1 million in punitive damages. Among their complaints, the women contended that Cal-West pressured them into working as much as 16 hours a day at home and misrepresented the working arrangements. Cal-West denies the charges.

At many other companies, however, telecommuting seems to please both labor and management. Mountain Bell claims that its telecommuters are 35% to 40% more productive than in-office counterparts. Says William Benham, chairman of the company's telecommuting division: "Employees who work at home develop independent work habits. They learn to set goals." He predicts that by 1995 one-third of the 69,000-member work force at Mountain Bell's parent company, U S West, will be telecommuting.

As that trend spreads to other companies and the legions of home entrepreneurs keep growing, the impact is only beginning to be felt. Traditional workplaces are not going to disappear, but more and more professionals will have a choice: the camaraderie of gathering around the office coffee machine or the freedom of working at home.

With reporting by Thomas McCarroll/New York and James Willwerth/Los Angeles