Oikos Revival: returning productivity to the household

Oikos Revival: telecommuting and the return of productivity to the household

Over the lunch table in Berkeley, CA, I hear that telecommuting is taking off, and that many companies are finding their telecommuters are more productive. Not surprising, given that many telecommuters would otherwise be spending several hours a day in the car to get to the office. I'm sure that having enough sleep and time to say Hi to your family & friends does quite a bit to increase one's productivity.

But aside from the modern day reasons for why telecommuting works for the individual and their company, there is actually something quite timeless about telecommuting...it may very well represent a return to a more normal way of life, and a turn away from that strange blip in history where people actually went to the office to work. It has everything to do with the rise of the service economy, and I'm all for it.

Let's get some perspective on productivity. Humanity has been productive for a long time, but only relatively recently (say the last few hundred years) have we donned suits, ties, stockings, or other trappings of non-manual labor and showed up at an office. Sure, the rise of a service economy has a actually had quite a bit to do with putting us in those offices, but the past is a bit more interesting than that.

Start out with that word, "economy." "Eco" comes from the Greek "oikos," meaning home or household. Aside from Disney's marketing gurus, most people today don't place the center of the economy in the home, but that's where it started. When "household" related to "homestead" - family farm, family lands - production of goods came from the home. Men, women and children worked the fields, harvested, processed and prepared food and clothing, cared for animals and each other. Cultures might divide the labor up along age and gender lines. Together, they provided most of the goods and services that were needed for daily living.

In cities, the specialization began, and the seed of the modern-day office job was born. Why learn how to smith metal when a black-smith could do it for you, and better? Eventually there were banks, insurance companies, and even scholars to do research on what everybody was doing.

With the Industrial Revolution, people now needed money first, goods second. The production of the goods that made the economy sing along happily moved from the household to the factory. Interestingly, this is also the beginning of the discounting of the value of housework. In a barter economy, house-produced goods were currency. But in the industrial economy, housework didn't earn money like factory work did.

Factory workers had to go to the factories, because that's where all the capital intensive manufacturing machines were located. As the economic infrastructure complexified, various services were developed for people who had the money for them. Now the service economy is probably larger than product production in the US, and we wear expensive office clothes to prove we don't have to do the hands-on work.

But do we really need to get together at the office anymore? And what about this 8-5 workday? With the web, the telephone, and the mail, there's often no storefront anymore. People or their companies can afford to set up an office at home: computers, telephones, video conferencing... who needs to slog through traffic anymore?

Sure, there are some good reasons for seeing each other. Like lots of boring meetings, and hopefully some inspirational ones, too. And what would we do without the social life around the coffee pot? But maybe these don't have to happen every weekday.

Telecommuting is reviving the "oikos." So is "consulting" and "freelancing." Productivity is moving back into the home. It doesn't matter so much what you look like or where you live, just as long as you can deliver the goods...or should I say service? And why does one need to work from 3-8, when the kids are home? why not wait until they go to bed, or share the care with other family?

However the new telecommuting parents schedule it, household productivity provides opportunities for flexibility in the 8 hour work-day schedule that has otherwise proved remarkably effective at keeping reproductive women (and sometimes men) as second-class citizens in the work world, factory or office. Of course, there's no reason to limit the benefits to parents, either.

So here's to telecommuting - a new twist on an old way of life.