STRAIGHT TALK
Face to Face with Karl Llewellyn, Homebased
07-07-2000
by Matthew Magee
Anybody who doubts that Ireland's workforce wants to work from home should hear Karl Llewellyn's story of how his business started.
One small advert asking for people who wanted to work from home elicited a flood of responses. "That was one line in a south Dublin free paper," he said. "We got hundreds of responses."
Llewellyn's company is a testament to a seemingly voracious appetite for teleworking and home working amongst Irish workers. "When did you last get someone saying that their friend had read your classified and told them about it? That just doesn't happen anymore, but it happened to us," he said.
With that ad Llewellyn founded Homebased (www.homebased.ie), a recruitment agency that specialises in providing firms with employees who work from home. Since it opened for business in January, the company has placed 100 of the 1500 workers on his books with firms.
His story seems to exemplify the push-and-pull about teleworking and home working in Ireland. Employers who Llewellyn contacts claim they have 'looked into' or 'tried' teleworking, and mutter mistrustfully about staff bunking off to watch Neighbours, while advocates promote the fact that it can bring the chance of fulfilment to many who would not otherwise have the opportunity to remain in work.
Even though Llewellyn's business is based on the hard economic sense of using teleworking ("it costs IEP4,500 to keep an employee in an office according to the state - even our own figures show it is at least IEP2,500"), even his involvement is little more than an accident borne of an employee's need to work from home.
"We set her up at home and, with that knowledge, decided to place the ad in the paper," he said. "Once we saw the responses, about 600 in the end, we decided not to do this as a hobby any more, to do it right and set up a company. We did some market research and asked companies had they ever thought of doing teleworking, and 90pc said 'no'."
Llewellyn believes that most of the real objections raised by companies don't make much sense. "They say that security is a problem, but our systems are often more secure than the ones they already have. It's not like someone is going to break into an employee's house, leave the TV and video and take that lever-arch file in the corner."
"They are worried about monitoring people but all that is needed is a change in management mindset to performance-based management. We took these problems, solved them and then came back to companies saying, 'We're ready.'"
"If they're still sceptical then we can just say 'we have a legal secretary with five years' experience and 120 words per minute - you go and get one because they're just not out there'," said Llewellyn.
His company charges a flat fee of IEP1,250 per placed employee, and for this they will source the employee, provide employer and candidate with a manual and offer support services for three months.
HANDLING THE HOME TRUTHS
Further to that, though, Homebased.ie also offers a training day for the candidates when they have completed their first two weeks at work. Llewellyn says that this is crucial in helping workers prepare for what can be dark days ahead.
"Everybody has a high after the first week or two," said Llewellyn. "There is a low that comes after month one when people begin thinking 'this is not all it's cracked up to be.' The home becomes a prison, and people need to know how to deal with this."
Llewellyn believes that not everybody is suited to teleworking. The does not take people straight out of school or college and strongly advises workers to go into the office occasionally.
Young people, he believes, need "the craic on a Friday evening after work." Teleworking, he said, is for workers who have a bit more experience who find their priorities are shifting as they grow older. Many teleworkers and home workers are those who find they want more time with their families: this means both men and women, he says. "Everyone keeps referring to women, and I think that can become a sexist remark."
Other people are funding through half-time teleworking a passion they indulge the other half of the week. "They could be world experts in something, but they want to make use of the other 20 hours of their week," he said.
Llewellyn founded Homebased out of his call centre company Phone.Net, and has brought his father, Brendan, in on both companies with some money and plenty of advice. "He is certainly not a silent partner," he laughed. "He is somebody you can trust, give out to and who gives out to you."
He is happy to expand the company organically, but between his two firms, he is betting firmly on the emergence of the virtual call centre. "One day someone will want to build a 200 seat virtual call centre, and will decide that we are the guys to do it - that's the break you wait for," he said.
NAME Karl Llewellyn
TITLE: founder and managing director
COMPANY: Homebased (www.homebased.ie)
RECENT FUNDING: An undisclosed sum from venture capitalists Enterprise 2000
WHAT'S NEXT: To place more remote workers with Irish firms and wait for the virtual call centre concept to take off. "This market has only just begun."
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