Codestone

Category: Workforce mobility

An increase in flexible options for staff – potentially including home working – could help the UK beat its current economic hardship.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) – a new think-tank set up to tackle some of the problems in Britain's financial outlook – has outlined a raft of changes it would like to see implemented.

These include the possibility of people job sharing and working a maximum of 20 hours a week, in a bid to reduce unemployment.

As well as the economic benefits, staff members would be free to spend more time with their families and the energy consumption of commercial properties would be slashed.

Flexible alternatives to a nine-to-five routine – including home working – are already available to employees with young children and now the NEF wants to see these rolled out to everybody.

The International Data Corporation recently predicted a rise in the use of mobile phones by professionals, with 1.3 billion people across the world set to take advantage of technology to work from remote locations by 2015.

Posted by Shannon Wells