Office staff say no to homeworking

Office staff say no to homeworking

The right to request flexible working has now been in force for a month, but the majority of British staff still prefer to remain in an office environment rather than working from home, according to a new survey.

The study by health and safety and employment law experts Protecting found that more than four in 10 office workers surveyed said they would be able to carry out their work from home. Almost as many believed they would be able to do the same amount of work in four hours homeworking as they would in a full day in an office environment.

However, seven out of 10 said if their employer gave them the opportunity to work from home, they would say no.

Protecting.co.uk’s Mark Hall told The HR Director: “While things like high speed internet have made working from home a real possibility for many office-based and call centre workers, it doesn't mean that it's actually better.

“In fact, despite being more productive at home, quite a few of the employees we spoke to said they couldn't wait to get back to the structured environment of the workplace.”

The new regulations to permit flexible and homeworking are appealing to employers who want to reduce their office costs. Faster broadband connections and the use of cloud computing to allow confidential information to be accessed securely off-site have meant that homeworking is now a practical option for many office-based staff.

However, those staff quizzed for the study raised concerns about boredom, missing office gossip and fears that their manager would be constantly checking up on them to ensure they were not slacking. Protecting based its conclusions on questionnaire responses from 500 office staff.

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