Southern California Job Market : Coping With Commuting : MORE PEOPLE ARE WORKING AT HOME

It all started quietly enough in a rambling old house on Harper Street in West Hollywood in 1980.

Felice and Boyd Willat needed a part-time business that would keep the cash rolling in while they were between movie and television production jobs. Felice came up with an idea for a “personal organizer,” a sort of super-duper calender/to-do list. Boyd, whose art directing credits include “Ordinary People,” designed a distinctive vinyl binder. And thus was born the first Day Runner.

Some five years later, the Day Runner was hardly a hobby. Annual revenue was $10 million, and there were 65 employees, 34 telephones and six computers operating the business. But the Willats were still running their Harper House business out of their two-story, 3,000-square-foot house on Harper Street.

“It was pretty wild,” recalled Felice, who has since moved the business into corporate quarters in Culver City.

Although she still cringes at memories of the zoning enforcement official who outlawed the late-night deliveries and the safety inspector who found the gerry-rigged telephone and electrical wiring, Felice would not trade in her days of running an at-home business.

“We liked being at home. Both our children were born at home,” she explained. “We are home people.”

And so are an increasing number of other workers.

According to the American Home Business Assn., some 27 million Americans now work out of their homes on at least a part-time basis. The figure, researchers say, includes about 13 million home-based business owners, about 3 million employees who are allowed to work from their home instead of the traditional office and about 11 million workers who use a home office to supplement their at-work activities.

The reasons for choosing to work at home vary, but not a lot.

Most at-home entrepreneurs cite the need to keep overhead low and the convenience of a nearby office during the early stages of a new business. Other important reasons for choosing the home hearth over the corporate office include the obvious benefits of avoiding a lengthy and hassling commute and the inevitable office distractions, such as ringing phones and coffee klatch gossiping. Still others say they want to spend more time with their families.

But the bottom line to all the reasons, explained Jack M. Nilles, a former researcher at USC, is that at-home workers want more control over their time.

“These people want to fit their work life into the rest of their life, not the other way around,” said Nilles, who recently opened a consulting firm that helps companies create at-home work opportunities for their employees from his own Los Angeles home. “Everyone likes to be in control of their life.”

In addition to becoming more popular, working at home has become a whole lot easier, thanks to a wide range of technological advances, such as personal computers, fax machines, modems, scanners and call-holding telephone features. These advances not only give the home office many of the conveniences of the corporate environment, but they allow the at-home worker to remain in easy communication with the outside world.

Still, despite its obvious benefits and growing ease, working at home is not for everyone.

Many workers need and want the hubbub of the office and the face-to-face exchange of high-minded ideas and down-and-dirty gossip. Others need the discipline of regular hours and direct supervision from a boss. Still others need a regular change of environment.

Who has the temperament to work at home?

Paul Edwards, a Santa Monica writer and co-author of “Working at Home,” called the ideal at-home worker a “self-managed person.”

“These are people who take initiative, people who are extroverted,” he explains. “These are people who use home as a base, rather than a resting place. These are people who don’t--and won’t--feel isolated. These are people who want to be in charge of their own destiny and have the capacity to do just that.”

Least likely candidates for at-home work assignments are people who need regular social interaction with their colleagues and hands-on supervision and approval from their bosses. This type of person includes the insecure and the immature, as well as someone relatively new to a particular assignment who needs on-site direction to understand his duties.

It also includes the person who expects to climb the corporate ladder, since “out of sight, out of mind” often applies when promotions are being contemplated. Furthermore, experts say single people who live alone do not like to work at home because, more so than married people, they get a great deal of social contact from the office.

However glorious and liberating it sounds, working at home comes with some obligations.

At-home workers, particularly home-based entrepreneurs, must be able to set a daily agenda for themselves--and stick to it. No hanging around the television or refrigerator. No long breaks in the garden, or at the kitchen stove. There has to be a routine.

“If I don’t stick to my routine, then I’m always rushing around and I never get any real time off from the job,” observed Trish Hawthorne, a private college admissions counselor who has been working out of her Berkeley home for the past three years. “That’s a sure way for the job not to be fun anymore.”

Although goofing off is an obvious pitfall, so is becoming a workaholic. With a desk full of chores awaiting completion just a few steps away from the rest of life, many at-home workers become consumed by the job.

“I could work a lot more,” said Jeff Thompson, a Riverside general contractor. “The real problem is knowing that work is just one step away from the family room television. But finally I’ve had to cut my work day off at a certain time and be done with it.”

At-home workers must also be willing, and able, to handle the inevitable feelings of isolation that a remote office inevitably generates. Many offset the disconnected state with regular outings or telephone calls just to stay in touch with the outside world. Others bring employees into their home to enliven the working scene.

Sunny Bernstein, who has operated a full-service public relations firm from her Los Angeles home for more than a decade, recalled that it only took her a month to realize that she needed a co-worker in the house to keep her happy and motivated. In the years since, the staff has grown to six and has gradually taken over the wing of the house that was once home to Bernstein’s three sons, who are now grown.

“I always say I never lost a son, I just gained another office,” Bernstein said.

Full-time at-home work may be fine for the entrepreneur who has more control over his business opportunities. But most experts recommend that corporate employees spend no more than four days a week at home. “Otherwise you lose touch,” said Gil Gordon, a telecommuting consultant from Monmouth Junction, N.J. “You need to get into the office and press the flesh, and let others see that you still exist.”

Added Nilles: “There’s a real danger in becoming a tele-hermit.”