New Reports Suggest Companies may be Failing to use Home Workers Effectively

(PRLEAP.COM) London – 7 December 2006 - Recent studies from the UK’s Newcastle City Council, Salford City Council and US network security provider SonicWALL have all concluded that companies could increase productivity by encouraging more staff to work from home. However, according to the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) less than 7% of UK companies are taking full advantage of home working and this is often because they don’t trust their staff to work unsupervised.

Last year, Newcastle City Council were gratified to discover that staff in their home working trial were 25% more productive than office staff, with a significant reduction in sickness. Their findings were backed up by study from Salford City Council, which charted a 15% increase in productivity from home working and 29% fewer sick days. In fact, a recent survey by SonicWALL indicated that 76% of employees believed remote working improved their productivity. Despite these figures, less than 1 in 12 UK companies offers home working to all staff, and more than half don’t allow home working at all.

Last year, the UK Office of Central Government identified a major issue that is slowing the take-up of home working: many bosses don’t know how to manage home workers. One difficulty for bosses is that home workers take advantage of their more relaxed environment. Around 30% take breaks during the traditional work day to do chores, listen to music or watch TV, and make up the time in the evenings or at weekends. Around 10% of home workers don’t even get dressed!

Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson and Sally Walters, the authors of "Changing Places of Work", tell us that presence and visibility have traditionally been the basis of management. As a result, companies can find it hard to manage remote staff. Some companies have tried the draconian solution of "employee monitoring" and even turned a webcam on their home workers but, as well as being unpopular, these schemes can’t handle flexible home working practices.

According to Anne Currie of UK firm workingProgram, "Many employers fear that home workers are not focused or that they put in fewer hours, though the reverse is often true. This misperception means companies can lose key staff or miss out on the productivity improvements of home working. Companies need a better way for home workers to communicate how they work and what they do at home." workingProgram believe they have the solution with their Qlockwork product. According to Currie, "Qlockwork is software that talks directly to your PC to automatically track your time. It lets you show your boss exactly what you did, when you did it, and demonstrate how effective your home working is - even if you did pick the kids up from school at 3 o’clock, and then make up the difference on Sunday morning".

The evidence indicates that home working helps UK businesses to improve productivity and staff health. Bosses just need a little more reassurance and information to help them understand how their home workers work.

About workingProgram

workingProgram Limited is an independent software company based in London, UK. It was founded in early 2006, and its founders have over 25 years of combined experience in the software industry. The company currently specializes in productivity software for Windows.

workingProgram’s Qlockwork product is a personal time tracker that helps individuals track how they spend their time, without having to keep timesheets or use timers. Because Qlockwork is integrated with Microsoft Outlook, users don’t need to learn anything new to use it. Qlockwork runs under Windows XP or Windows 2000, and requires Microsoft Outlook 2007, Microsoft Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Outlook XP/2002. A free 30-day trial version of the product is available at http://www.workingprogram.com/downloads.html.

For more information, contact info@workingprogram.com or visit http://www.workingprogram.com

Further information

- The CIPD’s 2005 "Flexible working: impact and implementation - an employer survey" www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/wrkgtime/flexwking/flexworksurvey
- Newcastle City Council 2006 press release http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/press.nsf/newsbyid/D9E1821BC20B4E7E80257142002A1322?opendocument
- Salford City Council home-working case study http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/transactionalservices/casestudies/study1.asp and 2002 report http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/aio/286791
- SonicWall 2006 press release http://sonicwall.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=708
- A Felstead, N Jewson and S Walters, "Changing Places of Work", Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 ISBN: 0333949080

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