The radical commute: the emergence of fly-to-let
THE ACADEMY OF BUSINESS STRATEGY
BUSINESS INTERNATIONALIZATION BLOG
THE RADICAL COMMUTE: THE EMERGENCE OF FLY-TO-LET
AUTHOR
Luis da Silva (CBS) MA BSc BA
Those who have worked in the United Kingdom for the last decade have almost certainly noticed the change in working habits. Not least is the huge change in the attitude towards the office: before 1990 rare was the employee who accepted a job that did not involve a physical office and a desk. It was the sign of solidity, of security and of permanence. Enter contracting. During the 1990s the external consultant, office-based but with no fixed employment ties, created a mini revolution in working practices. Hugely paid while often able to dictate working hours and commandeer best jobs, this mass of risk-takers, many of whom made a fortune while they could, set in motion a much greater working practices revolution. Even the traditional consulting firms started to experiment with shared office space and part-time home-based working. With a fast-approaching Y2K and a return to the re-engineering (read downsizing) of the 1980s, suddenly even employees started to think that maybe having some form of independence from their employer might not be a bad thing. Since giving up the job was not on the cards, giving up the office and the desk was the most obvious consequence.
The change in employee mentality was matched by a shift in employer attitude, in particular driven by a need to drive down fixed costs. The two met perfectly in a situation where remote or home-based working, hot-desking and other similar techniques proved to be the perfect solution.
Fast forward ten years to the end of the noughties and senior executives find themselves increasingly mobile. Moreover, many spend so much time on a plane or the nature of the business is such that it can be run (and has to) from a car, an airport lounge, a serviced business centre or the company office on another continent. Why, then, if senior executives have their fair share of take-home work, not live where you want and travel into work when required?
Seem like a crazy idea? For a time, I lived in east Hertfordshire. To travel down to King’s Cross and up to a client in Newcastle, took me over four hours as there was no easy way I could go straight up from where I lived. When I established a base in the south of Europe, direct flights to Newcastle meant that my travel time including driving at either end, was less than four hours. I flew thousands of miles, got through border and passport control and had time to work. And the price of the return flight including taxes was normally lower than the return train trip!
Regular plane travel has become a way of life in the US, where executives spend days on end flying from city to city in different states, week in and week out. The culture in Europe, where the distances are comparable or shorter, leans towards limiting travel to typically one trip per week. In Asia, where distances are longer, trips would typically incorporate multiple stops and longer periods. However, one thing is common among all these regions: many executives and professionals are opting to live where they wish, and ‘travel’ in to work. No longer is the commute limited to car snarl-ups at the entrances to cities, or train rides cross-country, or even helicopter rides across a crowded metropolis, but now also features professionals of all descriptions who choose to fly in to work. Expanding businesses need to recognise this growing trend.
Clearly the advent of low-cost flights has enabled the start of something that as recently as half a decade ago would not have been viable. And while in certain regions, such as Asia, the sheer distance that needs to be covered is too large, the model works with variations in many regions of the world. A few examples include:
The European parliament, which sees many members return to home countries once or even twice a week ;
Northern European businesses, which see their executives and professionals travel from Southern Europe, often with working couples travelling to different destinations for work, and then meeting at home at the weekend, or choosing to meet for a weekend escape elsewhere before flying back to work;
In countries such as Brazil, where regional employment opportunities may be hugely different to those in main cities, the professional bread-winner might travel to a city for the week and return home on the weekend. One way flights may be as long as five hours!
South East Asia professionals might have a love for one of the Thai islands, or Singapore, but fly into Bangkok, KL or even Manila, for example.
In the continental U.S., travelling professionals usually return home every weekend. Due to the varied nature of much US travel, these warriors of the road tend to spend time in hotels rather than opting for an out of town second home. In the Far East, travelling Westerner professionals, together with their Asian counterparts, can often afford, as a result of the lower cost to both them and their businesses, to duplicate their lifestyles, one in the country of residence and one on the country of work. Europeans fly-to-lets tend to exhibit very different, sometimes even frugal, lifestyles in the country of work.
While analysing these aspects of behaviour and profile is beyond the scope of this brief article, clearly the growing influence of the fly-to-let phenomenon is an increasingly important aspect when planning to contract successful senior management. These individuals, often a constant target for international companies, have become accustomed to building a work travel profile around a personal or family base which must remain stable. While on the surface this might appear to be a less than ideal situation for the company and the executive, it is often proved that the ability to avoid the distractions involved with relocating a family, often unsuccessfully, allow the executive to focus on the business without the distractions of adjusting an entire family unit to a new set of circumstances. While this clearly is a challenge the first time, many seasoned professionals whose families have now adjusted to the new way of working, find that they are not only able to be more productive when working, but are slowly clawing back that quality time with family that seemed so difficult when the family was together and the bread-winner often absent.
Looking for work-life balance and the search for a greater focus of the business around the founders or executives (memories of a start-up – full circle and the circle of life?), opportunity to choose lower cost base and start a support structure at a distance.
So like many new trends emerging in the global world of business, fly-to-let executives and employees will increasingly be a factor in the competitive labour market. Whether driven by employee demands or business requirements, the ability to work fly-to-let employees into the business model, could well be the differentiator between finding key employees, or providing the right set of circumstances to allow them to flourish. And that (apologies to Frost), can make all the difference.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luis da Silva (CBS) MA BSc BA is an approved Certified Business Specialist (CBS) with the Academy of Business Strategy and his specialist subject is business internationalization. He has achieved an MA, and BA from UNISA and a BSc from the University of the Witwatersrand. He has been employed as a CEO and board member of a listed company with a turnover of €250 million and value of €1 billion and has experience within the Manufacturing, Electronics, Banking, Agribusiness, Travel/Airlines and real estate industries. His clients or employers have included Fractional Villas Inc, Invest CV Limited, BGR Ltd, API Undercliffe Ltd, DMS Lda, Emeritis, Quillion Ltd, Datanomic Ltd, E-business Partners, PLAUT and Andersen Consulting. He has geographical working experience in the USA, UK and Brazil. His language skills include English, Spanish and Portuguese. His service skills incorporate business management, business expansion or turnaround and people management. To contact Luis da Silva, please contact the Academy of Business Strategy by forwarding an email.
