Soho: Snapshot Of An Emerging Workstyle
Who is today’s home officer?
Whether they’re home-based entrepreneurs, teleworkers (employees allowed to work from home for a boss elsewhere), or even heads of households handling family finances from a corner desk, home office workers are a highly individualistic, entrepreneurial and lucrative segment to product marketers looking to target an expanding market.
About 33% of U.S. households support some home-working activities, according to 2002 statistics from IDC, a research consultancy in Framingham, Mass. The U.S. currently has some 34.3 million home offices, up slightly from 34.1 million in 2001 and 33.9 million in 2000, IDC reports. These include home businesses and teleworker offices (see sidebar on telework). Of those, income generating home offices account for less than half, or about 14.3 million, with 9.6 million of those being full-time, home-based businesses, IDC notes.
The average age of today’s home-based worker is between 39 to 43 years, with slightly more than half the group being men. The average household income is $57,000. Some 28% of boomers have home offices, notes a 2000 Yankelovich Monitor report.
Psychological drivers also are important. According to a 1998 study by Ernst & Young, entrepreneurs – including home business owners – identified themselves by such qualities as:
- Individuality. The desire to work for themselves.
- Awareness. The knowledge they can do their jobs from home.
- Confidence. To leave current job and launch a business on their own.
- Freedom. To explore self and family – without corporate obligations or interference.
- Understanding. From family, co-workers, clients and peers that they are business people – not hobbyists.
Though home-based workers are decidedly Baby Boomers, two emerging demographic groups have their distinctive expectations of today’s workplace. While boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) felt liberated to be able to work outside the corporate office or from home, Generation X’ers (born from ’65 through the mid-1970s) are increasingly individualistic. They enter job interviews with the expectation of flexible work arrangements and telework.
The next wave, Generation Ys or Millennials, are Americans aged from 18 to 24. They also are prepared to work from home. Some 19% of Americans 21-35 years old have a home office, according to Yankelovich. Their upbringing is a key part of their ability to work remotely or from home. Reared on the PC and such community-building tools as the Internet, Instant Messenger and “buddy lists,” Millennials raised in dual-income families abhor their parents’ work-related stress and seek to better integrate professional and personal lives, according to William Strauss, co-author of Millennials Rising (www.millennialsrising.com, Vintage Books, 2000).
Optimism runs high among today’s home officers. In spring 2001, when the economic was already in recession, upward of 40% of entrepreneurs surveyed noted their businesses were performing well.
“The entrepreneurial spirit is stronger than ever,” notes Ray Boggs, IDC’s vice president of home office research. “From an attitude standpoint, they have this pervasive attitude of optimism. It’s not a just a ‘let’s make money kind of thing.’ These folks have a mission, and that’s what carries them through rough times.”
Appealing to home officers requires the right mix of product benefits that can be translated into improved efficiency – which ultimately delivers increased balance between business and home. Tools – whether they’re electronic, computers, or standard office supplies – should be marketed as resources that remove distractions and allow entrepreneurs to focus on their work.
“From a message standpoint, companies should provide resources and tools that create that ability to go to the entrepreneur and say ‘Let your light shine through,’” Boggs says. “We’re not providing solutions, we are removing distractions. We’re talking off that lead weight that slows you down, whether it’s organizational tools, email software or networking equipment. We’ll let you soar.”
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HOME OFFICE SUCCESS STORIES is a monthly electronic magazine distributed free for the asking, from Jeff Zbar's Goin' SOHO!. For more information or to schedule speaking engagements or seminars, contact Jeff at Phone:954-346-4393 Fax:954-346-0251, or via electronic mail at:jeff@goinsoho.com
