'Home-shoring' a hot trend for U.S. firms

06:50 PM CST on Thursday, March 10, 2005

By JEFF BRADY / WFAA-TV

It sounds like an office and works like an office. But for customer service and sales agent Nancy Allor, it's home sweet home.

Allor speaks crisply into a telephone headset, "Can I go ahead and get your customer number please?"

U.S. companies sending jobs overseas have suffered the wrath of politicians, unions and some economists. But the new trend of home-based workers may help solve that problem.

"Well, I can make my own schedule," Allor said. "I'm a single mom, I have two kids - seventh grade and eighth grade - and typically they have school activities."

Allor handles customer service and sales calls for four separate companies, all of which have decided to downsize call centers and send the work home.

"Certainly after all the hype you've heard about off-shoring, in the last few years companies now have looked at ... really trying this 'home-shoring.'"

The home-shoring concept is serviced by agencies like Working Solutions, which has more than 20,000 "remote agents" working from home for corporate clients nationwide.

"It's kind of the emergence of this new white-collar work force, this freelance workforce, and people are happy to be a part of it," said Tim Houlne, CEO of Working Solutions.

Corporate America is happy about it, too. Twenty percent of businesses surveyed currently home-shore, and of the remainder six percent plan to do it this year, with 16 percent planning to add it within two years and 26 percent in three or more years.

Analysts say it's a function of cost and quality. Home-shoring cuts call center expenses and turnover, without forcing jobs out of the country.

"There's no question about this," said John Slocum of SMU's Cox School of Business. "There's a hue and cry in the U.S. on protectionism, and everyone is screaming for the government to do something."

Allor likes home-shoring so much, she talked her daughter into it. They earn between $8 and $12 an hour, select the jobs, and set their schedule.

"I think more and more companies are going to start moving in that direction," said Working Solutions' Kim Houlne. "There's a huge cost savings for them, it's great for the environment and I think people enjoy working from their home."