Remote office centers are office space leasing centers which lease individual offices to employees from multiple companies in a single office location or center. The purpose of remote office centers is to provide professional office space in locations that are near where people live, so they can cut down on the commute, but still work out of a real office with professional grade internet, phone service and security.

Office center locations

Remote office centers are usually located in close proximity to where people live; they are generally distributed throughout suburban and near-suburban locations. The idea behind a remote office center is that you lease an office near where you live, in a building shared with other remote office users and you telecommute

Telecommuting

Telecommuting or telework is a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links...

 from a professional, secure, and reliable office-work environment.

Services provided by remote office centers

• Professional grade internet access
  Internet access
  Many technologies and service plans for Internet access allow customers to connect to the Internet.Consumer use first became popular through dial-up connections in the 20th century....
  
   for use with company VPN
  Virtual private network
  A virtual private network is a network that uses primarily public telecommunication infrastructure, such as the Internet, to provide remote offices or traveling users access to a central organizational network....
  
  . (Personal firewalls
  Firewall (computing)
  A firewall is a device or set of devices designed to permit or deny network transmissions based upon a set of rules and is frequently used to protect networks from unauthorized access while permitting legitimate communications to pass....
  
  , for each office, are configured in order to ensure security within the center).
• Professional work space environment (desks, chairs, lighting, file cabinets, etc.)
• Professional grade phone system
• Mail stop
• Security system
  Burglar alarm
  Burglar , alarms are systems designed to detect unauthorized entry into a building or area. They consist of an array of sensors, a control panel and alerting system, and interconnections...
  
   (complete with system logs that can be provided to employers in order to guarantee work attendance).
• Flexible office space leasing that can grow or shrink as a company grows or shrinks, which is no longer constrained by location, or limited floor space in existing facilities.

Leasing

• Remote office centers allow for flexible leasing, so that companies are not stuck in long term leases in case an employee quits or leaves employment for any reason.
• Remote office centers may offer additional services such as optional equipment or hands-on technical support
  Technical support
  Technical support or tech support refers to a range of services by which enterprises provide assistance to users of technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods...
  
   for additional fees.

Advantages over traditional telecommuting

• Professional work space with professional internet/network access.
• Freedom from distractions inherent in home work environments (TV, family, chores, etc.)
• Secure facilities with attendance logging so that employers can be assured of employee work hours.
• Separation of home and work. This is a key to mental health
  Mental health
  Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
  
  . For many people, it is hard to separate work from home, if you never leave home. Most people need a work place to go to and more importantly come home from. An ROC provides the office, and the social contact
  Social contact
  Social contact can refer to:*in the sociological hierarchy leading up to social relations, an incidental social interaction between individuals....
  
   that comes from working in an office with other workers (even if they work for a different company).

Limited acceptance of traditional telecommuting

• Dice Holdings recently ran a survey and found that 30 percent of technology workers who were surveyed would accept a 10 percent pay cut if they were allowed to telecommute. However, the same study showed that only 7 percent of technology workers actually did telecommute, and they were mostly consultants. There is obviously a large discrepancy between those who want to telecommute and those who are able to telecommute through traditional telecommuting implementations.
• A government study showed that only 20 percent of government workers telecommuted at all. The same study showed that 96 percent could telecommute part-time and 79 percent could telecommute full time
  Full time
  Full-time employment is employment in which the employee works the full number of hours defined as such by his/her employer. Full-time employment often comes with benefits that are not typically offered to part-time, temporary, or flexible workers, such as annual leave, sickleave, and health...
  
  . The same study showed that $19.9 billion dollars of commuting cost and $21.5 billion in pollution costs could be saved if government workers and management were to fully embrace telecommuting either from home or remote centers.

Government initiatives

• On June 3, 2008, the House passed H.R. 4106. H.R. 4106 would require agencies to develop a program allowing employees to telework at least 20 percent of every two-week work period.
• GSA currently (June 20, 2008) provides 14 Remote Offices in the D.C. area that can be used by Federal Employees.
• The Oregon Telecommunity Center Project produced a replicable model for planning and developing a telecommunity center to reduce travel demand
  Travel behavior
  Travel behavior is the study of what people do over space, and how people use transport. The questions studied in travel behavior are broad, and are very much related to activity analysis and time use research studies.* How many trips do people make?...
  
  while increasing access to jobs. The project assessed the needs of specific Oregon rural communities that can be served by technology and network services through a telecommunity center.