Flexible Working Business Case Is Clear

By Ann Clarke of Claremont Group Interiors

It's getting on for twenty years since we first started talking about flexible working. Interest in the subject was so intense at its peak in the mid 1990s that we were seriously asked to consider nothing less than the death of the office itself. The world with which we were presented was one in which we could work from home if we wanted as an alternative to soul-sapping commuting, desk-bound grind and vending machine coffee.

It hasn't happened like that...

...of course, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. In fact, a survey carried out by the CBI in September 2008 highlighted just how mainstream flexible working now is. Almost half of the firms and public-sector organisations polled by the CBI said they now offered teleworking to staff, a sharp rise from 14 per cent two years ago and 11 per cent in 2004.

The uptake of flexible working has been encouraged by both the pull of business necessity and the push of legislation which has given an increasing number of employees the right to work flexibly. There has been much agonising of the usual rights and responsibilities kind about this legislation but the business case for flexible working is pretty clear. It can help organisations to retain employees without disrupting the business and can even make them more productive. It can also help to cut the cost of workplace ownership.

The business case may be clear, but there remains the ongoing problem of how to implement the many variants that we lump together under the banner of new ways of working. What was originally seen as an alternative to the 9-5 routine is... continued on page two >

 

 

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