Staff benefit from remote working trend

It is a well-known fact that a happier employee makes for a happier customer.

But how do you keep staff happy when they may be spending over the odds to live near the office, fighting twice-daily battles with a recalcitrant transport system or juggling pressing family commitments?

The growth of mobile technologies is changing the culture of how and where we work. An estimated 400,000 new people every year take advantage of flexible working, and at least 2.2 million use technology to work away from the office, according to government figures.

The result is more opportunities for people with families, less pressure on transport infrastructure, a boost for regional development and a better chance of finding a work/life balance.

From the employer's point of view, it can be a significant investment. And while the benefits are impressive, they tend to be in area's that do not necessarily show up clearly on the balance sheet.

'The soft benefits of remote working can be very significant because if staff are happier then you don't lose them,' said Nick Jones, vice president at analyst Gartner.

'But they are hard to enumerate and you have to be quite sophisticated in your understanding of costs and benefits to do the sums.'

There are four different types of remote working, says Jones.

• Travelling workers, such as field engineers, move around as part of their job and benefit from using laptops with GSM or GPRS mobile connectivity.
• 'Day extenders' do a portion of their work from home in addition to a day in the office. Typically these are more senior executives who catch up on email in the evening using their home internet connection.

• 'Campus workers' are often found at large industrial organisations. They may not actually leave the premises but are often not at their desk and benefit from technologies like wi-fi and mobile phones.

• Traditional teleworkers work from home one or more days per week. They increasingly rely on broadband connectivity to access corporate applications.

British Gas has a huge mobile workforce of engineers and has invested heavily in remote working initiatives.

'Without the technology they couldn't do their job,' said business IT manager Peter Ransom.

Engineers use wireless-enabled laptops to download daily schedules at home and go straight to their first job. And British Gas has shut down all ninety of the local depots that used to issue paper work schedules.

'There were major cost savings in the reduction of land usage, administrative support and so on,' said Ransom.

Engineers themselves feel more in control, he says. Where they used to have a single piece of paper, now they are equipped with a whole range of tools including diagnostic systems, parts-ordering functions and full service manuals.

'It used to be that an engineer could turn up at a job and be completely surprised by what they found there,' said Ransom.

'The wireless link means they never feel out of touch and are always able to report back on a given job.'

There is a direct link between customer and employee satisfaction, says Ransom.

'We are very focussed on making the employee happy - which is a simple aim, but hard to do.

'One of the ways we do it is by refreshing the technology.

'We don't put a financial value against it but we do put very specifically in the business case where it will improve employee satisfaction,' he said.

The company is also developing a homeworking strategy for its office workers.

'We recognise working patterns change when people have families.

'But just because someone's lifestyle changes, it doesn't mean we can't change with them,' said Ransom.

Sun Microsystems

Global technology supplier Sun Microsystems has studied the business impact of its Intelligent Working (iWork) programme.

The central tenet of iWork is to create an environment where staff can work anywhere, anytime on anything, says Sun UK head of government affairs and public policy Richard Barrington.

Research shows one desk for every 1.2 to 2.5 people would meet employee demands for workspace and 75 per cent of staff would like to participate in homeworking.

'We have to stop focussing on the technology and think about what people need to do their jobs,' said Barrington.

'If you can access anything you need to do the job from anywhere, then you don't need a fixed desk - you can be at a customer's site, at home, wherever,' he said.

The iWork initiative has saved the company £92 million over the last year and real estate costs are down 20 per cent. And the figures are expected to grow as the initiative is rolled out across Europe, says Barrington.

On average each employee taking advantage of iWork saves three commuting hours per week, time that is usually split between work and family.

'There is no pressure to use the time on work, but people do it because they feel the company is treating them like adults so they respond in kind - the result is higher productivity,' said Barrington.

'The thing for us is choice. If you need to work at home we will provide the technology, desk and so on because the cost to the company is minimal compared to having a happy, productive member of staff,' he said.

Oxford Citizens Housing Association

Remote working is not only for the large enterprise. For the Oxford Citizens Housing Association (OCHA), a not-for-profit company providing social housing across the region, it is just part of an overall approach to employee relations.

'It is retention and recruitment tool and part of a lot of work we've been doing over the last few years,' said human resources manager Trish Ampleford.

'Remote working complements the flexible working policies we've put in place such as flexitime, different types of leave and alternative working patterns,' she said.

A key part of the policy is managing people by their objectives, says Ampleford.

'Generally people feel empowered to go on with their work and make decisions about how and when they are going to do it.

'We have standards and expectations but in terms of people managing their home and work lives we give them a platform to be able to do that.'

The value of remote working shouldn't only be considered in terms of the straight financial return on investment. Issues such as morale and productivity may be harder to measure, but they can give the business its competitive edge.

Remote working - facts and figures

• By 2005 nearly 14 million Europeans will become new homeworkers
• Between 2000 and 2005 the number of homeworkers in Europe will increase by 53% to a total of nearly 40 million people. In 2005, the UK will still have the largest number - 8.3 million
• In Spring 2001 there were 2.2 million teleworkers in the UK - 7.4 per cent of all in employment
• The number of teleworkers increased by 65 per cent between 1997 and 2001
• Approximately three quarters of teleworkers are in the private sector - most are either professionals and senior managers or officials
• The government has just published guidance for employers considering teleworking policies. It can be found at www.dti.gov.uk

Source: Datamonitor / DTI

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