Flexible businesses are successful businesses!
Often considered the reserve of big business, flexible working has real economic, social and environmental benefits that organisations of any size can take advantage of. According to the CIPD small businesses using flexible working report a massive 18% increase in both productivity and profitability. To illustrate how flexible working can help your bottom line the Sussex e-Partnership is providing free master classes in Brighton and Crawley in March.
Flexible working means flexibility in terms of time and location: from job sharing and staggered hours to home-working or teleworking from a hot desk space. With the reduced costs and greater availability of broadband and mobile communications, it is now cheaper and easier than ever to keep in touch with your team and customers from anywhere and at any time.
Flexible working offers some genuine solutions to the issues facing Sussex businesses such as access to affordable office space, congestion and parking. "Across the Gatwick Diamond, the principle road arteries are working at capacity, so any minor problems can create major congestion. Flexible working in association with other schemes, such as car sharing, would have a major impact on reducing congestion thus allowing business to be more productive and employees more motivated." commented Alistair Smith, Chief Executive West Sussex Economic Partnership.
In addition to reduced overheads, the business case for flexible working is particularly strong when you look at the positive effect it can have on your workforce. It not only encourages morale with staff enjoying a better quality of life and therefore staff retention, but also gives you access to a much wider pool of talent. For example, a number of very skilled peopled are unable to work within the confines of traditional working practices because of disabilities or family commitments.
Likewise, absenteeism costs the UK economy £12 billion per year including stress related sickness and minor illness, and has been shown to significantly reduce when flexible working is offered. If businesses in the South East increased their productivity by 18% across the board it would boost the regional economy by over £1 billion (worked out on current GDP of region).
As well as the obvious business benefits, flexible working also provides real benefits to the environment. Businesses are under increasing pressure to take responsibility for their environmental impact with consumers and businesses choosing suppliers based on their green credentials. To put it into context, if we doubled the number of tele-workers across the South East that work at home just one day a week it would save one billion miles per annum, and cut a whopping 105,000 tonnes of carbon emissions!
Commenting on the initiative, Oona Muirhead, Executive Director, Sustainable Prosperity at SEEDA said: "One of the three overall objectives of the RES is to reduce the carbon footprint of the South East. Teleworking, home working and home based businesses are great ways of reducing carbon footprint - and saving money for the business. As well as reducing car travel and congestion, there are additional benefits of improving the employees' work-life balance with more useful time and reduced stress.
It can also mean increasing business productivity and organisations spending less money on office space. Further, that it gives more employment opportunities for people with disabilities, discourages crime with more people at home and strengthens local communities. SEEDA therefore, would encourage your participation at this Flexible Working workshop, Get Smart."
These workshops are ideal for employers who want to: Learn more about flexible
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working and how to implement it
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Reduce costs and improve flexibility
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Successfully manage a distributed team
The sessions are free and will take place from 9am - 1.30pm (including a buffet lunch):
Brighton: Tuesday 18th March, The Lighthouse
Crawley: Thursday 27th March, Hawth Theatre
To register your place and download your flexible working toolkit visit: www.broadbandeastsussex.co.uk/flexibleworking or call 01243 382255.
