It's more common these days to see employees working from home. After all, mobile technology, VoIP and unified communication and collaboration suite make it easier than ever to bring the office home. However, according to a new study from digital media company Captivate Network, "Homing from Work" has also become fairly common.

As you may suspect, "Homing from Work" is when white collar workers handle personal and family needs during the workday. This may seem, at first, like a negative trend, but Captivate says it is actually improving work/life balance, while also creating new opportunities for brands to engage with customers when they are in-market for various goods and services.

These findings are based on Captivate's ongoing Office Pulse (News - Alert) survey that polls the experiences, insights and opinions of over 4,000 white collar workers in North America. Last year, this survey's results revealed that summer hours — telecommuting, four 10-hour-day workweeks, etc. — are bad for business.

This year's study revealed that there was an 11-percent increase in the number of people reporting a healthy work/life balance as compared to 2011. This becomes more noteworthy considering a 30-percent increase in respondents working more than nine hours per day. However, Captivate believes this anomaly can be explained by "Homing from Work."

"People seem to be getting more comfortable with putting in longer hours," said Scott Marden, research director at Captivate Network, in a statement. "Part of that appears to come from the growing ability to take care of personal business during the workday. In fact, 93 percent of people reported 'Homing from Work.' It's a definite shift and it's impacting not only the way people work but also the types of issues and activities that are on their minds during the workday."

In the case of advertisers, Captivate suggests that white collar workers may be receptive not only to business products during the workday, but to offers that help them manage their home and personal lives, as well.

The fastest growing "Homing from Work" activities identified in the report include entertainment, which saw an 80-percent increase from 2011; surfing and shopping online with a 63-percent increase; shopping in retail stores, up 34 percent; and running errands at 31 percent.