Working from home

Holland & Co Chartered Accountants have examined the findings from a survey from You Gov which identifies over half (52 per cent) of Britons would like the opportunity to work from home if they had all the IT resources to do so.

Of the 2,063 people questioned for the poll 58 per cent of British workers thought that working from home boosts productivity, with 26 per cent believing they would be just as productive as they are in the office and 23 per cent even more so.

However, 51 per cent of British office workers said they were not given the option to work from home by their employer.

Quote from Nigel Holland:

" In theory there are savings to be made if someone works from home. These savings include travel costs, rental costs and other overheads. Office based workers would prefer to have more flexible working structures, nevertheless some employers are concerned that productivity would be affected. It is important to point out that because of technological advances it can be possible to have both flexibility and maintain productivity.

According the poll, nearly a third of those that have worked from home said that lack of face-to-face contact was one of the top reasons for not working as effectively, followed by problems accessing internal servers.

Compatible software between the home and office and high speed broadband connection were cited as the two most important factors allowing workers to work productively from home, yet only 44 per cent and 32 per cent respectively had access to each.”

It may well be the case that the problem is behavioral rather than technological. Because many of the technological problems can be overcome. Some people want to work from home but are worried that they may feel isolated.

Elsewhere, the survey found that 67 per cent of Britons are not working from home during the Olympics, despite Government efforts encouraging employers to allow staff the option to do so in order to help ease congestion on London's public transport.

In total, just 31 per cent of British office workers have worked from home in the past 12 months.”