What is flexible working?

Flexible working is an exciting new trend in the world of work.

Thanks to today’s technology, many employees are discovering that they can break free of the old 9-5 mentality and improve their work life balance through flexible working or teleworking.

This can make it easier to juggle other commitments such as the school run, spend more time with your family or simply spend more time pursuing other interests.

One of the reasons that flexible working and teleworking is really taking off is that it’s proven that when employees work flexibly, it’s not only the employee who benefits, the employer usually benefits too . This is down to a combination of increasing productivity and reductions in overheads.

Some employees, such as those with care responsibilities, now have the right to be considered for flexible working . But many others are also grasping this new opportunity and pioneering new ways of flexible working and teleworking that work better both for themselves and their employer.

At a very simple level, examples of flexible working and teleworking could include:

• Making more use of conference calls and video conferencing rather than spending time and money travelling to meetings, so you reduce travel and avoid congestion.
• Carrying out some of your work from a home office or garden office rather than travel into the office every day
• Adopting a more flexible approach to when work is done, eg maybe it would suit you better to work early morning or late at night sometimes?

Some businesses are investing in technology to realise even greater benefits from flexible working, teleworking and mobile working.  Examples include:

• Installing a Virtual Private Network so employees can work from home just as efficiently as in the office, through remote computer access.
• Making use of wireless laptops so that you can use broadband hotspots as you travel around, minimising downtime through mobile working
• Connecting staff around the UK (or around the globe) by broadband
• Making use of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony

Some employers have discovered that they no longer need a permanent office at all, with dramatic cost savings to the business – and a radically new work life balance for the employee.