Flexible Working

A growing number of organizations acknowledge that flexibile working is a critical retention and recruitment tool. But lingering suspicion means that most don't maximize the value that flexibility brings.

A new study has found that flexible working can bring a big boost to the bottom line by reducing absenteeism, improving employee health and even helping to improve employee commitment.

A growing number of U.S workers are now working from home or telecommuting, but employers are still way too laid back about the possible security risks this entails.

U.S. workers take duvet days not because they are lazy or work-shy but because they are either feeling completely burnt out or frantically dealing with a family or relationship crisis.

Managers are demanding greater control over their own working hours, despite complaining bitterly about having to manage the flexible working arrangements of others.

Forget about juggling work and kids. The biggest challenge for workers over the next decade will be holding down a job while looking after ageing relatives.

When most Americans say they want better work-life balance they aren't asking to take their foot off the career accelerator, they simply want to work differently.

If the attitude towards working dada at major American companies such as Ernst & Young, KPMG, and Sun Microsystems are any indication, it looks like corporate American's view of fatherhood is evolving - much like society's view on it

Grumbles about a lack of work-life balance are often a sign that staff are unhappy about other areas of their job and how they are being managed.

More and more Americans are working anywhere but at their desks, as the airport lounge, the coffee bar, the family table and the car increasingly become the office spaces of the future.

Let's talk about the black sheep of the white collar world – shhh – don't say it too loud, HR might be listening in – but go ahead and say it... "telecommuting". Go ahead, try it again... "telecommuting".

It's not rocket science. When employees are deciding whether or not to take a new job, being able to work flexibly or remotely will often swing the balance. But try telling that to HR.

As you may have noticed, they're demanding, don't take kindly to authority, expect high salaries and rapid promotion but want to work flexibly. Welcome to the "Generation Y" workforce.

Working from home one day a week has transformed Peter's life. But could economic jitters put paid to his company's support for flexibility – and what can he do to prevent this?

If you are stuck on the train or in a traffic jam every morning, you might well dream about working from home. But the reality is that flexible working does not necessarily lead to greater leisure or family time.

On this week's Working Week podcast, Wayne is joined by writer and management journalist, Phil Whiteley, co-author of a new book, How to Manage in a Flat World. They discuss how managers can communicate and motivate in today's flattened companies and how this might develop in the future.

On this week's Working Week podcast, Wayne is joined by writer and management journalist, Phil Whiteley, co-author of a new book, How to Manage in a Flat World. They discuss how managers can communicate and motivate in today's flattened companies and how this might develop in the future.

The laptop-wielding nomadic worker is becming quite in fashion in the American workplace these days - and not just in Silicon Valley.

The remote working revolution is being hampered because many mangers are stuck in the mindset that they can only manage a team that is physically there in front of them.

With mobile workers expected to account for a quarter of the working population by 2009, what are the personality types, cultural influences and management techniques that are needed for success?

Here in the UK, government legislation is driving organisations to offer more open work arrangements to staff with the aim of ensuring parents and carers have the opportunity to progress with careers.

More and more of us don't want to work in an office. Now Microsoft has built an office up a tree in a Central London park to ram home the point that it easier than ever to be free of your desk and still be productive.

Dan is desperate to work a more flexible schedule but his boss told him that he's too valuable not to have around all the time. So how can Dan make him see that if he can't figure out a better fit between his life and his job, he's leaving?

With more Americans than ever feeling out of pocket as rising gas prices hit the cost of the daily commute, pressure for creative solutions such as telecommuting is growing.

If you're in the United States, you can hardly have failed to notice the steep rise in gasoline prices over the past few months. Which only adds to the list of reasons for organisations to embrace telecommuting.

This time last year I was sitting in a stuffy, badly furnished office building, looking at a blockwork wall and facing an hour's commute home. Now I look out at the trees in the valley that runs behind my house. No prizes for guessing which I prefer.

Job sharing is all too often dismissed by managers as being too expensive and difficult to manage – but it need not be. Yet managers often fall back on five "myths" about job sharing as a way of ducking the issue.

The nature of work is changing far quicker than the economic world around us. But this means that a lot of things that organisations and managers used to take for granted are just no longer delivering or sustainable - whether they like it or not.

Even five years ago, the idea that a senior executive would turn down a job because it meant too much travel, or demanded too much of their time would have been seen as absurd. Not any more.

Trust is not easy to develop in the best of circumstances. When working with teams whose members may never have met each other, these problems only increase. So how can we build trust in such an environment?

Almost 29 million Americans now work remotely at least one day per month while the number of employees whose boss is happy for them to do the same has risen by 63 per cent since 2004.

All 29 million workers in Britain – not just those with children and caring responsibilities - should have the right to request that they work flexibly according to the Minister for Children.

Keen to work from home? Great idea - just as long as you're happy to be labelled unambitious and keen to make your sceptical, office-bound manager resent you.

Two thirds of Britons want to work flexibly, but half are worried that to do so could harm their careers because their organisations are stuck in the mindset that productivity is somehow linked to presence.

Work should be something we do. Yet to an overwhelming extent, it has become somewhere we go, leading to the pervasive belief that productivity is somehow linked to presence.

Nearly half of American workers can expect a better than average year-end gift or bonus this Christmas and New Year, but don't expect much in the way of paid time off over the holiday period in return.

UK bosses are missing out on the huge benefits that flexible working can bring to their businesses because they are clinging to an outmoded Victorian desk-bound working ethic.

Campaigners for smarter working have called on the world must reform the way it works as one weapon in the battle to deal with the problems of the environmental impact of human activity on the planet.

Offering key employees the opportunity to work fewer hours for less pay might seem like heresy – particularly in U.S. corporations. But a new study has revealed that such flexibility can deliver some very real benefits.

Two thirds of HR managers in the U.S. believe that working from home will soon become commonplace as remote working options become part of standard operating procedure in most companies.

The phenomenon of "teleworking" is unlikely ever to be practical for the majority of us and may be overshadowing other, far more effective means of improving work-life balance.

Fatherhood might be a life-changing experience, but it has little effect on men's working patterns. Indeed men continue to work the same hours after they become fathers and show no desire to spend more time at home.

Although six out of 10 Americans believes that telecommuting at least some of the time would be the ideal working arrangement, fewer than a quarter are actually given the option by their employer.

Americans' love affair with the car and attachment to the office is costing the U.S. economy $3.9 billion a year in fuel and time equal to 470,000 jobs, according to the 2005/2006 National Technology Readiness Survey.

The high cost of fuel is impacting U.S. workers' leisure time activities and may also be leading to an increase in job turnover as commuting costs spiral.

Managers remain resistant to the idea of senior staff being able to work part-time, an attitude that is deterring many women from reaching their full potential in the workplace.

The modern British workplace is one where there are fewer grievances between workers and managers, better relations with unions and - according to managers at least - a much better working climate.

An archaic office-bound, nine-to-five work mentality is putting business productivity is at risk because employers still won't trust their staff to work flexibly.

For all the efforts to promote the benefits of flexible working, old attitudes die hard. Indeed according to a new survey, six out of 10 employees in Britain believe that asking their boss for more flexible working practices will damage their career prospects

Changes to the economy, technology and working culture are signalling the end of the nine-to-five working day. But does this mean that the daily grind is just going be replaced by a still-more onerous 24-hour treadmill?

Financial services employers have been warned that they need to address their long hours cultures and help staff balance their work and home lives following a promotion or risk losing them to another company.

The UK will find itself at the mercy of China and India's "tiger economies" unless organisations adopt better working practices, according to the boss of one of the country's largest companies.

Too much management is still fuelled by insecurities over the need to 'control' and 'observe' employees. But this obsession with line-of-sight management has to change if organisations are to face up to the significant changes we're experiencing in labour force availability.

Britain's company directors have become enthusiastic advocates of flexible working, with almost all working from home on a regular basis.

The growing trend towards home working is breeding a more productive and – certainly in terms of personal habits – a surprisingly more liberated workforce.

By teleworking just two days per week, the U.S. government and white collar workforce could conserve 11.67 billion gallons of gasoline per year.

For most people in Britain, just getting to work is a thoroughly miserable experience as they brave appalling traffic congestion or unreliable, overcrowded and over-priced public transport.

As workplace change becomes an irresistible force, forward-looking organisations are launching coordinated efforts towards fitter, more agile and more responsive working environments.

Fast food giant McDonald's has announced an innovative new initiative in the UK whereby members of the same family working in the same location will be able to swap shifts without prior notice or needing to seek a manager's permission.

While changes in the nature of work present a great opportunity for enhancing business performance, disconnections and gaps in the goals and visions for workplace components often allow opportunities to slip away.