Transport department call for action to boost home working

The Department for Transport has launched a new campaign to boost understanding of the benefits of home working among businesses.
The campaign has been launched by junior transport minister Norman Baker as part of his drive to promote alternatives to travel.
A next steps report on the alternative to travel initiative, which unveiled the Anywhere working campaign, describes home working as one of the flexible working mechanisms that employers can use to maximise productivity.
The campaign will encourage businesses to look at the flexible working practices that work best for them, such as setting up impromptu workhubs or making use of wireless hot spots in public spaces and cafes.
The primary aims of the campaign are to educate, promote and encourage flexible working practices, to illustrate the efficiency and productivity benefits of a more flexible approach, and to help reduce the burden on transport infrastructure and the environmental impact of travelling.
The campaign will offer businesses advice and share best practice via an online resource due to be launched in January 2012.

Businesses will be encouraged to try out approaches to flexible working in the Anywhere working trial week, which is due to take place in February 2012.

Launching the Anywhere working campaign at the British Library, Baker said that communication technologies offered the means to ‘travel around the world in an instant without travelling at all’. 

‘The advantages are undeniable – productivity and efficiency savings, a reduced carbon footprint, employee wellbeing,’ Baker said, ‘and they are for both companies and their workers.’

Click here for more information on the Anywhere working campaign.

What's in it for workhubs?

Put the week starting Monday 6 February in your diaries and register your interest now in the campaign at the National Business Travel Network's ways2work website to take part in the build up to the February call to action. The goal of the initiative is to achieve a permanent shift in approaches to work, with more businesses and employees using working anywhere methods.