Does a Garden Office boom signal an entrepreneurial light at the end of the recession tunnel?

Work from home

Last night, in an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Mr Lipsky said: “the (Uk’s) unemployment rate remains unacceptably high but it seems to have stabilised”.

The IMF’s analysis is unlikely to end calls for alternative economic plans and as Labour unveils plans for a city bonus tax to aid youth unemployment?, an altogether more entrepreneurial activity seems to be changing things from the grass roots.

An increasing number of companies are catering for a thirst for home garden office and garden studio’s as more and more people are starting their own businesses from home because they have lost their jobs or fear that unemployment might be on the cards and would rather take their destiny into their own hands.

This year’s organisers of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Chelsea Flower Show, have identified “the garden office” as a major trend. These peaceful work spaces often combine a range of environmental features including solar panels.

According to the Office of National Statistics, 1 in 12 of the British population now work from home on a self-employed basis – the equivalent of over 2 million people.

However it is the internet that has really allowed these garden offices to really make a difference to both the environment and our economic prospects. With broadband communications bringing teleconferencing and data sharing in the cloud, individuals and networks of disparate colleagues can, for the first time, work with clients and suppliers all over the world, free from the gas guzzling commuter trips to centralised offices.

The flexibility of home working is often seen as providing a more balanced work/life relationship allowing a more integrated family life and has been proven to provide more productive output. It is the profits from this increased productivity from millions of entrepreneurs working from home and in their garden offices across the UK that could be the salvation to our national debt and the light at the end of our credit crisis tunnel.