A Management Guide to Remote Working in the United Kingdom

UNITED KINGDOM - Peter Knowles, consultant at British Telecom's (BT) Workstyle group, offers managers and HR some first-hand advice about homeworking (teleworking), as well as a few facts about remote workers and the United Kingdom.

Over the last few years, flexible working has emerged as a popular method of working. According to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in the UK alone there are more than 2.2 million flexible workers and many organizations are starting to offer flexible working options as a method of enticing new joiners.

Yet although practice has been proven to deliver a number of benefits in the form of cost savings and productivity improvements, flexible working has unearthed a number of issues for HR directors and the executives that must manage these dispersed teams. While technology has a large role to play in tackling these issues and enabling flexible working, there are wider management issues to be considered before this style of working can start to deliver real business benefits.

Today, working from home or on the move is not seen as the revolutionary style of working it was once thought to be. The advent of new technologies and devices such as WiFi, broadband and PDAs have made it possible for a wide range of workers in various positions to work as effectively out of the office as they would in it.

For many, this method of working is best suited to their lifestyles and characters, finding they can work more productively away from an office-based environment. This style of work has the potential to deliver many business benefits, however this will only happen if handled carefully and supported by a carefully thought out management plan.

Planning for flexible working

As increasing numbers of organizations start to offer flexible working practices, more focus has had to be directed towards ensuring a motivated workforce both in and out of the office. This requires direct interaction between the human resource, facilities management and IT departments, working together to build a coherent strategy around flexible working that can be implemented across an organization.

Communication

Maintaining regular interaction between management and employees is unarguably the most important factor to be considered within a flexible working plan. Just because remote workers are out of sight does not mean they should be out of mind.

Initiating regular face-to-face meetings and employee appraisals is hugely important. Whereas in an office-based environment a lot of information can get passed through informal office networking and chance meetings between colleagues, this cannot happen when an employee is working on the move.

Without regular face-to-face meetings employees can feel isolated and ultimately motivation and productivity levels may dip. Even though all your team may not be based in one place, managers must try to maintain a good team dynamic.

Remote workers may often miss out on informal commendation and encouragement. Flexible workers need to be trained and encouraged from the beginning to share ideas, work-in-progress and achievements with their office-based colleagues. Managers must also remember that in addition to ensuring they are communicating regularly with both office-based and remote workers, communication channels between team members also need to be in place.

Carry out regular employee satisfaction surveys to ensure that the remote workforce is happy and motivated, and I recommend that managers do the same every three months. The results from our own surveys at BT are encouraging-in fact, on average, our remote staff is seven per cent happier in their work than their office-based colleagues.

Through flexible working strategies we saved a total of £3m on retention and recruitment of staff last year alone. This supports our belief that if managed correctly, flexible working can deliver huge benefits for an organization.

Technology

In addition to regular meetings, there are various technologies that can encourage collaboration among disparate team members, such as video and audio conferencing. Using instant messaging is a great way to connect office based workers and remote workers into communities. The physical location of each member of the community becomes irrelevant and colleagues can interact as if they were sitting alongside one another.

Instant messenger systems such as MSN Messenger can also ensure that office-based workers are able to offer support to their colleagues who work elsewhere. A recent Chartered Management Institute (CMI) survey identified that almost half of remote workers have a tendency to work longer hours and not cry out for help when it is needed. Managers can use this technology to understand their colleagues' working patterns and recognize when there is a potential problem at work.

Legislation

Aside from the daily business issues to be addressed by managers of remote teams, there are also the wider legislative issues to consider. Although remote workers are not always physically in the office, they are still working on behalf of an organization and are therefore covered by the Working Time Directive.

This means that managers need to ensure their remote workforce are still taking regular rest periods, annual leave, and are working an average of no more than 48 hours work per week. This can be difficult to monitor, but is achievable through regular interaction and the use of collaborative technologies such as instant messenger.

Also important is ensuring that remote workers adhere to health and safety regulations. In the same way as a health and safety officer would carry out an assessment within the workforce, remote workers are obliged to work with their managers to assess their working environment themselves.

Many factors must be considered such as ensuring that their workspace is clear and their chairs are ergonomically designed. If an employee is injured in his or her home whilst working and this has not been managed effectively then the ultimate responsibility could fall to the employer.

While all of these issues may seem daunting to someone who is new to flexible working and has never before managed a geographically dispersed team, the factors to consider in managing flexible workers are not actually that different from when managing office based workers.

Ensuring regular, appropriate communication should by far be the greatest priority. If a manager can ensure that their remote workers get the same level of contact and involvement as their office based employees, then they can look forward to working with a motivated remote workforce.

At BT, our flexible working practice has delivered positive benefits for staff and for business productivity. We are keen that other businesses, large or small, can also start to experience the advantages that flexible working has to offer.

A few remote working facts

1. The majority of managers in the UK claim to be at ease with employees' flexible working regimes but clueless as to the working environment outside of the office or as to why their people work remotely. While 77% of employees claim that remote working improves job satisfaction and productivity, three-quarters of managers do not have a good understanding of why staff work remotely, claims a University of the West of England (UWE)/Johnson Controls report.
   
   Looking at the impact of flexible working on businesses in the UK, the report suggests that 80% of managers are happy with staff working remotely or flexibly, even though 70% feel that it is for 'cultural' reasons rather than for any operational benefits:
   
   "It is clear that many corporations have moved forward and taken a responsible approach to flexible working, but the evidence suggests that this is not always necessarily for the best or right reasons. A more strategic approach that gears workplace provision and working processes to meet the needs of the business will gain better commercial results than simply adopting practices to be perceived as a responsible employer,' said the UWE's Marie-Cecile Puybaraud.
   
   
2. Even though the UK has one of the lowest percentages of staff working from home across Europe, its employees are the most likely to choose a job offering the option than one which does not, according to research from Epson.
   
   The survey of 750 workers across Europe, suggested that France (43%) and the UK (48%) had the lowest levels of home working in the five European countries investigated; Germany came in top with 60%. However, 52% of UK employees said that the option to work at home would be an important factor when considering the next place to work, the highest figure recorded by the survey.
   
   Reducing stress was seen as the biggest appeal by UK workers with 81% choosing this as the reason to home work. Across the UK, Spain, Germany, France and Italy, 73% of workers thought home working would reduce stress.
   
   
3. The RAC Foundation recently called for more home working to help reduce the level of traffic congestion in the UK. Commuter times are averaging 45 minutes they claim and offering home working could cut congestion by 15%.
   
   
4. The Work Foundation claims that employers are simply playing Big Brother when it comes to home working and only offer the option to privileged individuals in an organization. Firms need to switch from judging people by how long they spend on the job, to what they produce, says the report co-author Tim Dwelly:
   
   "People who work from home are often made to feel guilty as if it were some kind of perk. Yet all the evidence points to home working being remarkably productive. Fewer days are lost to illness, commuter stress is avoided and there is less time-wasting," he says.

This article was downloaded from www.HR Gateway.com, HR News & Information with a UK and EU Focus.