A travel agency is branching out into homeworking – albeit with a twist on the usual model.
Owner of York-based Quartz Travel, Paul Smith told TTG the time was now right to expand his business, and that he was keen to shake up the traditional homeworking model – by providing an office space for homeworkers to come together rather than having to work from home all the time.
Space has been set aside at both the Quartz head office in York as well as at Amigo Travel – a travel agency owned by Quartz and in the same city, which offers low-cost holidays.
Smith told TTG he had spent nine months researching the sector to identify a niche in the market.
“We thought ‘how can we attract people from larger homeworkers to come and work for us’. The home-workers that we spoke to said they were lonely at home and so we thought about how we could approach it differently,” Smith said.
“We wanted to create a space for a sense of camaraderie where people can get together, and somewhere for the homeworkers to invite their customers to come in if they wanted to meet face-to-face. Some don’t like bringing strangers to their door.”
The homeworking division, which launches this week, will be called “The Library”, to reflect the fact that homeworkers will be “borrowing the space and sharing stories and travel knowledge with each other”, Smith said.
For the first few months, homeworkers will be required to work a set number of hours in the office space, and will need to let the company know which hours they will be there, but after that will be able to drop in as and when they wish.
“The Library” will also have its own website and individual blogs from the homeworkers. Smith said commission would be paid out each month, and insisted that the joining fee remained “on a par with other companies as we don’t want to undercut”.
He added that the spaces were able to accommodate 100 homeworkers, but that he was focused on recruiting 50 for the first year.
“They can be former homeworkers or stepping out of the arena of working from home full time, or they could be agents looking for something different,” Smith said. “We never want to stand still; we never have. We’re always trying to evolve.”