There is a big swing all over the world now towards staff working from home. For example, in the US, the majority of workers are now home-based. You may want to read that again – the majority. That means people sitting in a home office working on their laptops and PCs exceed those going to the office every day.
As is often is the case, this trend has started to come over the pond. It's more prevalent in and around London where the costs of travel and the actual time lost is more significant and also where a lot of US-owned companies have their bases. However, outside the big city, we've still got a lot of catching up do if a recent Vodafone survey is anything to go by.
The operator, which interviewed 1,000 managers across the public and private sector, discovered that only 59% of UK companies allow employees to work remotely with only 15% of companies providing employees with the tools to work from home such as laptops and broadband dongles, while a mere 12% handout smartphones to staff. These figures must change in future if British business wants to improve productivity and keep up with its neighbours.
You see, this is not a bandwagon that will just roll away. It is here to stay and it is already in the minds of your staff – especially if they are “Generation Y” employees – born after 1982. This generation is well aware that the technology is available to enable flexible working – and indeed they may know people who do work from home – and they envy them.
They envy them because not only does it give a better work/life balance but it ultimately saves them money. Think about your average employee and their journey to work – travel costs burn through a lot of their income just getting to and from that desk. With annual reviews lurking early next year, how many of us are in a position to give big increases? Wouldn't it be good to be able to reward the commitment we get from the team without having to impact our margins? Well, harnessing this technology to benefit your staff and your business could just be the answer.
Mark Lavender is sales director of telecoms firm CCS Mobile