世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Research recently looked at telecommuting, a survey that was reported upon by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 17th of February 2012 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.2% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I should really do it more myself as we have a system that management is keen to promote, but I’ve only tried it for two or three days a couple of years ago. I’m keen to lose the commute, but my main problem is focus!
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With the summer fast approaching, bringing with it the prospects of brownouts and blackouts due to a slight problem with a nuclear reactor or six, companies are looking at working from home as one way of reducing the load. The survey was conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 23rd and 24th of May 2011 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 17.0% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Of course, working at home doesn’t really save much electricity, and I strongly suspect it actually uses more, as the trains still have to run – I doubt if enough people are going to telelcommute to allow them to decrease the frequency – and each person at home will have their own air conditioner running whilst the office load will probably be barely reduced. About the only benefit I can think of is that if there is a major lack of power, it’s less inconvenient for those who are already home versus having to try to walk or cycle to the suburbs.
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With the earthquake having knocked out a lot of power generation in the Tokyo area, one of the methods being mooted for saving electricity is to increase telecommuting, the topic of a recent survey by iShare.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 11th of April 2011 670 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.6% of the sample were male, 2.4% were in their twenties, 46.7% in their thirties, and 50.9% in their forties. All of the sample were employed and worked outside the home.

At work we have a telecommute environment complete with a quite frankly horrendous email client and a remote meeting application that I’ve never used. However, this environment can only be accessed via work notebook computers, but even though we have a draconian set of information security rules I think almost everyone else in the office works around them; I try to avoid working at home, so put no effort into making an easier environment for myself.

Regarding telecommuting and saving power – my employer too will be promoting it this summer, despite being outside the affected areas, and of course everyone in the office noticed that the additional load from a home air conditioner is more than that saved by one less body in the office and one less body in the trains. We’re forbidden from working in a coffee shop, so we can’t even borrow someone else’s cool air for work…
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