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<br />Tale 01 an ex-HOW
<br />(Home-Offi'ce Worker)
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<br />As the result of a merger, Jan Monti lost her corporate Job six
<br />years ago. She decided to turn that loss into an oppOrtunity to
<br />. · . start her own outplacement and management consulting firm,
<br />the Janus Group, in Seattle, Washington. As many new smail-business
<br />owners do, she began working out of her home office, but after 18
<br />months, she decided that seeing clients In her home was too Invasive.
<br />She found herselfworrylng:"Have I dusted? Is everything clean?"
<br />She also felt uncomfortabJe about clients straying from her living
<br />room. .It wauwkward. They'd have to use the bathroom, and I'd think,
<br />'Is my laundry out?'. Monti felt her home was not a professional setting
<br />for her clientele. .So I tried to make my home look and feel (profession-
<br />al), but that offended me, because I no longer had a space that was my
<br />space, so It wasn't ....lJy working very well. H
<br />Other homftoofftce problems Monti faced were not being Perceived
<br />u legitimate and feeling hidden away.HCllents want to know, for exam-
<br />ple, where your office Is located, and knowing that It's In a private home
<br />somehow delegltlmlzesthe value of what you're doing. Even something
<br />as simple as putting an address on your stationery becomes a problem
<br />If you don't want people knowing that you work out of your home. Most
<br />peOple with hOme offices end up renting post-offlce boxes.H
<br />She ~ys having a horne office didn't put her at the tier where she
<br />could charge.the same as people working from traditional offices. HI
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<br />from their home. For others, such as Jan Monti, the choice was a
<br />more standard office rental. Monti's new office involves a 15-
<br />minute commute, too, but by car.
<br />Another option is to relocate to an executive suite. This is a pop-
<br />ular option for a steadily growing number of "home-office
<br />refugees" as well as Fortune 500 companies looking to provide suit-
<br />able settings for remote employees. Executive suites offer a wide
<br />range of services, quick move-ins, a full support staff, and, most
<br />important for many choosing to leave their home offices, a "corpo-
<br />rate look:' Last but not least, it offers relief from isolation.
<br />Executive suites are also known as working environments and
<br />even, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, as McOffices. They're no joke
<br />to commercial real-estate developers, though. "The $2 billion (rev-
<br />enues) executive-suites business has doubled in size over the past
<br />five years. . . . The reason for growth sounds like a business journal
<br />lexicon: 'downsizing,' 'globalization,' and 'satellite locations' all pop
<br />up in explanations, as does the phrase: 'home offices that didn't
<br />work out;" according to the Journal of Property Management.
<br />What began in New York in the 1960s as low-cost suite hotels for
<br />businesses has grown over the past five years to about 4,000 execu-
<br />tive suites nationally, according to the Executive Suite Association
<br />in Columbus, Ohio. Some attractions that pull in former home-
<br />office workers are "highly effective shared resources such as shared
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<br />60 American Demographics October 1997
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<br />don't know if that was p~0lo9lcal or whatever, but people working
<br />out of home offices always charge Ilss for their services, and they never
<br />seem to have thl saml status as people who tnightbe offlced else-
<br />where."
<br />From Monti's own ~.nce, IInd drawing from her clients' and col-
<br />leagues' experiences, she Nysthat people with home offices are alWl}'S
<br />looking for a place to meet, They search out rtataurant$, conferen(e
<br />rooms, executive suites, libraries, or meet In their cllenfs' workplaces.
<br />Monti tried another arrangement of shllr~ng an office space with a
<br />very dissimilar business, a softwllre development company, but that
<br />didn't work well, either."1 need quiet, I need clean, I don't want cables all
<br />over the floor. 1 had my little cubicle a net II path that led to my office
<br />spate, and that was OK for a whlle.HThe trade-off was that right outside
<br />her.door she had a beautiful view of a Seattle waterway where II steady
<br />procession of yachts and ships passed by.
<br />Two years later, Monti decided It was time to move into her Own
<br />office In a high-rise building overlooking Seattle'sLllke UnIon. It's a
<br />serene environment with extra space for her clients to. use for thflrjob
<br />sell/'eh. "There's a work space with a working phone, whkh is part of
<br />whitt I provide as an outplacement counselor. If they need a space to
<br />work from and don't want to be In their own home, I provide that."
<br />Monti Is comfortable in her present location and says, HI will not go
<br />back to a home office. Even sharing space is a question mark. If I were to
<br />share space with another consultant, It would have to be a complimen-
<br />tary business relllt/onshlp."
<br />She's left home, but she's still on her own.
<br />-lCdthl S.Atlenand~.F"n"Moorman
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<br />facilities, equipment, and support personnel;' says Jane Booras, a
<br />Dallas consultant to the industry and former executive director of
<br />the Executive Suite Association.
<br />HQ Network Systems, Inc., one of the world's largest operators of
<br />executive suites, started out as a telephone-answering business
<br />back in 1966. In the past ten years, HQ profits have risen from $10
<br />million to more than $200 million. Loren McDonald, former mar-
<br />keting vice president, says that people moving from home offices to
<br />executive suites are a "high-growth area:' Part of the reason is
<br />summed up by Mark Lenart, owner of a Cleveland construction
<br />company and an HQ executive-suite tenant: "When you're on your
<br />own, you get in your own little world and lose sight of what's going
<br />on. Here you can share war stories."
<br />Those who provide this type of office space are well aware of the
<br />shift in their tenants' origins. "The share of our clients who used to
<br />work at home has doubled in the last five years:' says David Beale,
<br />president and chief executive of another large executive-suite oper-
<br />ation, Alliance Business Centers of New York City. Home-office
<br />clients account for 70 percent of the company's "flex-time" clientele.
<br />Executive Office Link of Malvern, Pennsylvania, also provides
<br />"shared-office space:' but in a space that's not exclusively devoted to
<br />the concept. The 650-acre community of The Great Valley
<br />Corporate Center offers lessors amenities such as a 200-room hotel
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