Do Businesses trust workers out of the office?
The snow that crippled the country at the end of last year left many people unable to get to work. It raises the question, should businesses make it easier for people to work from home, therefore significantly reducing the cost to the business of employees not being able to make it to the office? Many people say yes, though it has been suggested that managers still aren’t doing anything about it.
It would seem that managers are still reluctant to allow their employees to work remotely, as less than 1 in 10 businesses trust employees to work from home, according to new research released by BT and Nortel. This is surprising considering 42% of them were confident that their employees could do a better job at home! Does this mean that many managers are stuck in the past, keeping outdated working models, rather than moving with the times and moving people away from their desks?
BT and Nortel results showed that some employees felt that they could be more productive on the road, working with customers if they had the right technology. However, 58% of them didn’t feel confident of being able to do a better job outside the office. Perhaps this shows that employees are as uncomfortable with remote working as their managers.
The fact remains, however, that remote working would benefit business, as the snow-related problems demonstrated. It is concerning that so few managers trusted their employees to work remotely.
“This boils down to a matter of trust,” said John Wright, chairman of small businesses in a statement. “In the current climate, small firms need to be operating at full stretch.”
According to BT and Nortel, the research pointed at outdated research practices such as ‘presenteeism’, where it was thought that if workers weren’t at their desks, they weren’t working. BT claimed that business investment in unified communications could help solve the problem, as managers could check the productivity of their staff.
Eximium believe that remote working is a very powerful tool which should be utilised wherever appropriate. Our consultants work on site, with clients, and from home - so remote working is certainly a day-to-day occurrence here. As with everything, you need to have the right tools for the job, but as long as you are properly equipped, there should be no stopping you getting the benefits of flexible remote working in your organisation.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Business Advice, IT Advice, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
