Could the Olympics Signal a Move to Remote Working?

With the Olympics expected to generate 1m extra passenger journeys a day on London’s already overloaded transport network and a third of Londoners expected to change their travel routines during the 2012 games, could the inconvenience to business signal a move to remote working?

Commuters will notice changes to rush-hour patterns as crowds descend on some of the busier Tube lines and in the centre of town will be the greatest impact.

 “It is going to be very much life is unusual and business is unusual,” the ODA has already helpfully commented, leaving it to lie with the City’s employers to decide on a solution to ease the strain on commuters.

 But could letting staff rely on remote working, staggering their hours or working from home during the Games be viewed as a soft option?

 At BT, nearly three-quarters of its staff operate some kind of flexible or remote working. Staff can ask to vary their hours so that they can plan social activities, parenting and a reduction in travel expenditure around their role. It’s paid off for BT as a cost cutting exercise – they estimate to have saved £500 million by encouraging it.

 And at American retail giant, Best Buy, corporate headquarters staff were allowed time off to play golf, sleep in and then work evenings to catch up. The remote working experiment, suicidedly bold some might say - resulted in a staggering 35% increase in productivity – suggesting that freedom from the distractions of the office, pays.

So if some of the Capital’s main employers let staff work flexibly or remotely during the Games for three weeks and they too receive the benefits of reduced expenditure and happier, more productive staff, then why stop there?

The Olympics could be used as a springboard towards a much more widespread four-day office week with either staff working from home, doing compressed hours, or going part-time. A move that not only will help employers cut costs and ease the strain on commuter rail and roads (and ultimately the tax payer who funds their repair) but to help ease the pain of tough economic times. Perhaps then we will finally discover that remote working really can be a win-win.

Here are my tips to ensure that your organisation could benefit from a remote working strategy:

1. Be creative – Launch a pilot programme in your organisation. Start with one or two departments or a set period of weeks (the Olympics could be an ideal time) and monitor results against set targets.
2.  Develop criteria – Get a good remote working policy in place. Generally, the adoption of remote working involves building the minimum appropriate infrastructure – hosted solutions, or software installed and hosted in secure scalable data centres. Tools could include remote control applications, collaboration software and video conferencing software. It may be easier to reach team members via the web than walk around the office.
3. Technology – Ensure that you choose a hosted service that includes the ongoing management of the servers, software and data including the provision of backup services, installation of security patches and various levels of technical expertise and support.
4.  Communication – create a schedule for regular communication. Use instant messaging and video chatting for spontaneous conversations to ensure that staff don’t miss out on ‘the real world’.
5. Metrics - It’s well known that when staff work from home they are happier, free from office distractions and often more productive. However what about staff that need supervision? Rather than monitoring hours worked per day, set production targets or goals to be completed.