Work Wise Week—Posted on June 27, 2007

Work Wise Week, designed to raise awareness of the benefits of working flexibly, has just drawn to a close. This initiative and the lively discussion it has provoked in the media show how high flexible working is high on the agenda of both businesses and employees. This is a topic that resonates with staff, who want the option to work flexibly, and with businesses, which recognise the benefits. However there is still uncertainty on both sides about how to make it work.

What is increasingly clear is that flexible working is widely considered to be critical to business success. It is what people want and businesses need to enable it. The law now requires companies to give serious consideration to any request for flexible working. More than that though, companies increasingly recognise that allowing staff to work unconventional hours or to work from home can set them apart in a competitive employment market.

One of the programmes launched this week, the “Work Wise UK Quality Mark“ for flexible working, was introduced by Sir Digby Jones to help companies “improve business productivity” and “recruit and retain the staff needed to do business”. Gartner has said this week that flexible working will only become more important as the next generation, used to communicating via the web, expect flexible working to be a core part of the way we work. Flexible working is a “must have”, not a “nice to have”.

However, despite the enthusiasm for flexible working, there seems to be a lag in adoption. We surveyed SMBs late last year and found that while more than 80 per cent of companies had remote working policies in place, only 45 per cent of employees are taking advantage of the opportunity to work away from the office.

There are clearly some major barriers to adoption and perhaps one of these is our finding that 57 percent of SMBs expect employees to pay for some, if not all, of the technology required to work remotely themselves. Home workers also lack IT support, with out-of-hours support unavailable for 73 per cent of employees working from home. It is clear that for flexible working to be effective, it needs to be properly supported and for employees to be given the same tools that they access in the office. Employers need to follow through – it’s not enough to file the policy, they also need to provide the necessary equipment and the right technical support.

There are “softer” issues as well – employees worry about being out of the loop, losing a sense of team and becoming isolated. Employers worry about management issues – if you can’t see your team face-to-face, how do you make sure they are motivated and performing? This can be a real concern, but it is surprisingly easy to adapt to these working practices. Good management and simple processes like frequent team calls, clear objectives and regular face-to-face meetings maintain morale and motivation.

Many of THUS’ employees work from home some or all of the time or hot desk from different THUS offices. We don’t want to miss out on talented people just because they can’t re-locate, and we don’t want people enduring unrealistic commutes into work. Transitioning to this model needs to be managed carefully, with a lot of support, but it really can work for the benefit of everyone involved.