With smartphones and tablets blurring the line between work and play, it seems we’re busier than ever. Now we can arrange meetings, check work emails and respond to messages from friends on Facebook, all from a single device. But while this means we can get a lot more done on the move, it’s important that we don’t compromise our social lives.
In fact, we recently found that over half of the UK’s mobile workers (54 per cent) think blanket connectivity on the move would significantly shorten their working day, but don’t believe it would improve their work / life balance. In addition to this, one in ten (ten per cent) believe working less hours would improve the way they separate work and private lives.
By the end of the year, 70 per cent of the UK population is expected to own a smartpho...
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Over the summer, we’ve seen a huge drive towards remote and flexible working, as London commuters scurry away from the influx of tourists. With the expectation that public transport would be nightmarish during this period, many businesses made advanced precautions and allowed staff to work remotely from home. The result? A resounding success, congestion was down to a minimum and those that did come into London were able to get around much easier than expected. But will this trend continue over the following months?
Well our own research found that over half (60 per cent) of employees will work from home in the next decade. Face-to-face meetings with customers and prospects will also change with 72 per cent of businesses believing getting together in person will soon be a thing of the...
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The revolution of the traditional office space by remote working and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) schemes has been dominating the business media. So it’s refreshing to see that the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has not forgotten the benefits remote telehealth technologies can bring to the public sector too. A new report by the CBI has found that telehealth technologies could save the NHS up to £240 million a year.
But this comes as no surprise – we’ve already seen some forward-thinking NHS trusts around the country putting this into action. Six Cumbria and Lancashire NHS trusts already use a Telestroke network, a never been done before project which is expected to save the region up to £6.6 million in social care costs. This means specialist stroke doctors can examine, diagn...
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Summer is now upon us and with it comes a calendar filled with major sporting events. People all over the world will be tuning in to see their favourite athletes push boundaries and exceed their personal best. This is the kind of innovative attitude businesses need to adopt when developing a working strategy to not only cope with the excitement and pandemonium these tournaments are sure to create, but to help their business thrive during this period.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) released a study which claims that businesses will use the Olympics to test drive remote working and hot-desking. This is an exciting prospect for businesses as the working environment approaches a new era.
There’s a change coming to the way we work. Remote working isn’t anything new...
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Now in its seventh year, the aim of Work Wise Week is to promote modern “smarter” working practices such as flexible, remote and mobile working. Work Wise Week and National Work from Home Day are excellent opportunities for organisations to showcase what they are doing to improve business efficiency through smarter working and this year was the most proactive and successful so far. Changing working practices to embrace all forms of flexible working is an obvious solution to addressing competitiveness, the environment, road congestion and work/life balance.
The biggest benefit from working at home is the ability to focus on the outputs required and to “get the job done” on time and efficiently. It is no longer about how long someone spends in the workplace, it really is about achieving what...
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With National Work From Home Day just around the corner, Virgin Media Business caught up with David Lennan, Chairman of WorkWise UK on how working from home can benefit employers and create a 21st Century workforce in the UK.In the past decade, a whole range of smarter flexible working arrangements have become increasingly widespread. A number of key drivers are responsible for this including: improving morale and motivation of staff, supporting equal opportunities and improving productivity whilst reducing costs.
Working flexibly, remote or smarter is high on the agendas of organisations because “Business as Usual” behaviour in our high tech mobile world is not sustainable for the continued growth of the UK, or the world economy. Climate change is creeping up on us, carbon taxes are...
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When I’m talking to business owners one of the things that I’m asked quite regularly is: has mobile working come of age? It’s a question that I’ve found tricky to answer in the past, as it’s a bit of a yes and no answer. On the one hand, lots of office workers now have smartphones and tablet PCs so that they can access email whilst on the go, yet on the other, many don’t and even those that do can’t always access all of the files and applications that they need to function properly.
To get a more accurate view of how mobile working uptake is progressing across the UK, we polled 5,000 businesses about their working practices. We found that 64 per cent have equipped employees with the tools that they need to work out of the office. This represents a massive jump from last year when just 14 pe...
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If you're one of the 10 million people in Britain who drive to work each day, chances are you've noticed the price at the petrol pump going up recently. It now costs 129p for a litre of petrol in the UK – an all-time high. With the average worker making a 19 mile commute, the daily journey to work, combined with parking fees, now costs around £3,782 a year, according to a study that we conducted of the UK's 10 largest biggest cities.
For people on the average salary of £25,000, this equates to a fifth of their annual net wage, and would take more than two months to earn. In fact, the exact moment when the average worker stops paying for their commute and starts earning for themselves is 5:10pm today.
Fortunately many office workers could cut the cost of commuting by occasionally working remo...
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In just a few months, all UK workers with a child under the age of 18 will be given the right to ask their employer for flexible work arrangements. It's a government initiative that's designed to help more employees achieve a greater work/life balance.
Yet despite the benefits that flexible working offers both employees and employers, we recently discovered that just 16 per cent of SMEs in the UK currently allow staff to work flexibly or from home. I find this quite surprising, given that 42 per cent of the 5,000 businesses that we polled said that they thought flexible working could boost staff motivation and reduce employee turnover.
We found that the main reason businesses are putting off flexible working is down to fears that a mobile workforce might be less effective or that staff might...
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Call Centre Helper posted a really interesting article the other day, which revealed that nearly two-thirds of contact centres in the UK have implemented or are currently in the process of implementing a remote working strategy.
I'm not at all surprised. The ability to work remotely has proven to be really useful for all kinds of businesses. In fact, analyst house IDC has predicted that one billion people will be able to work remotely by the end of the year - around a third of the world's workforce.
In the past many businesses have raised concerns about the impact that remote working might have on productivity, but these concerns have proven to be unfounded. In fact the study found that more than 40 per cent of contact centre managers cited an increase in productivity as the main benefit of...
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