Ever made the daily trip to the office and wondered why you spent the time and effort getting there simply to write reports and memos, make phone calls and exchange emails and chat messages with colleagues and have an occasional meeting? Plus knowing you have easily started on those communication and collaboration activities in your home office or community co-working space not long after waking and having your first cup of coffee, boosting your productivity while gaining more control over your work schedule? In today’s world with information and communication technology more readily available almost everywhere, is it really necessary to make the commute to a distant office every morning and back home at the end of the work day?

Plenty of today’s knowledge workers are increasingly asking themselves these questions. Pressed for time with their busy daily schedules, they need more of it every day for exercise and sleep and spending time with their families and in their communities. Particularly when health experts are sounding the alarm over a rise in costly, chronic health conditions that can be prevented or reduced with more healthful lifestyles. Their organizations are also re-examining the need for commute-in offices and the large cost of maintaining those spaces – especially when their staff members don’t necessarily want or need them.

The questions from organizations as well as those who work within are reaching a tipping point in the transition between the Industrial Age of the twentieth century – when work was centralized in offices and factories and people went “to” work — and the information and work anywhere, anytime era of the twenty-first when work comes to people.