OFFICE SIZE REDUCTION ASSURED  

The viability of the shrinking office, even down to the costeffective one-person size, appears to be assured. Governments are making it so. Accidentally.

Consider the economic and efficiency handicaps eliminated in a sole proprietorship: no lay-offs with expensive severance pay or even costly legal and out-of-court settlements when a drop in business demands reduction of staff; avoidance from the start of fringe benefits, that can add up to 40 percent (one government figure admits to 34.1 percent) to an employee's basic salary; no necessity to contribute to pension plans or unemployment insurance. Not to mention the extra cost of payroll deductions, the payroll itself, collection of union dues (set up when "unions were too weak to collect it themselves") and the expensive space that employee's require, including washrooms, parking space, cafeteria, etc. Fringe benefits doubled from 15.1 percent in 1953 to 32.4 percent in 1978. It has dramatically increased since then.

The list goes beyond mere money. Think of the time saved by having no office politics to contend with; no time-consuming, efficiencydebilitating meetings; no delays in decision making; elimination of the cost of more office space for each employee's operations; freedom to outsource without having to consider union implications; no waste of time finding out who made questionable long-distance calls or incurred other company expenses.

The list goes on: elimination of the necessity for rigid conformance to regular office working hours and/or holidays, and the joy of working with people you like.

Recent reports say that 25 percent of the work force in western Canada is now "doing some work at home". They are not referring to mowing the grass. A 50 percent increase in operating business from the home is expected by the end of the decade. With today's technology, and this type of help from governments, a one-person office has the agility of a gazelle, unburdened by the arthritus of large size.

And governments are causing it, albeit unconsciously. Every time they add another cost to doing business, one, ten, a hundred or a thousand working people ask themselves "How can I avoid this hassle"? Be self-employed, not a stressed-out employee, that's how.

In Canada, the Ontario government is now suggesting that all companies with more than 20 employees be forced to unionize. Other governments impose huge fines on those who, deliberately or otherwise, hire someone who does not fit in with specific hiring regulations, i.e. minorities. Business taxes also are based on size, number of employees, capital invested and other arbitrary government decisions. Within the decade these ever-growing regulations will provide the direction-setter to establish smaller businesses as more likely to survive. They may move to another country to accomplish this. Stress levels, regardless of perhaps longer-working hours by sole owners, are usually lower in one-person offices than in larger companies.

It is already happening. Forty percent of all companies listed on the mighty Fortune 500 list 10 years ago no longer exist.

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