Flexible working is the key to improved productivity.
A survey of 400 business decision makers across Europe has found that flexible working has a larger financial impact on businesses than cutting operational costs, according to two thirds (66 percent) of respondents.
The survey, of business leaders in Russia, Germany, France and the UK and conducted on behalf of Polycom found that a flexible working strategy enables workers to have the ability to work at home or out of the office regularly or occasionally. In fact, European companies with flexible working programs in place report that affected employees are an average of 39 percent more productive than others. Respondents say that, on average, more than half of a company’s ability to generate revenue depends on the positive productivity of its employees, so the extra productivity of flexibly working employees has a significant impact on the bottom line. These results emphasise the importance of flexible working for companies who are looking for new ways to succeed and thrive in a challenging financial environment.
A second key finding of the survey is that video conferencing plays an important role in supporting flexible working strategies. Nearly 60-percent of companies surveyed are keeping on-site, remote, and mobile workers connected and collaborating face-to-face via high-definition interactive video, and 72 percent of respondents say that video collaboration is helping their companies become more productive and efficient. Video collaboration solutions for employees working at home or on the go, such as video software for mobile devices and laptops, is helping to further drive the usage of video with remote and flexible working employees.
“At mBlox we are conscious of the need to empower our workforce by introducing mobile and flexible working and have a flexible working environment as part of our normal business practice.” Says Andrew Mutty, SVP of Production and Customer Services, mBlox. “ Making full use of our IT investment in Polycom video conferencing solutions and cloud based video deployments in London, Singapore and California will ensure that it will be business as usual during the 2012 Olympics as we can connect and communicate face-to-face from anywhere into the executive boardroom and beyond.”
“At Polycom we’ve seen that flexible working is proliferating across Europe, and these survey results provide further evidence for this,” said Gary Rider, President, EMEA Polycom. “In the past, flexible working has primarily been considered an employee benefit, enabling a better work-life balance and reducing travel time and costs. But in fact, these results show that a flexible working strategy is a huge benefit to the business too, improving employee productivity by as much as 39 percent, and video collaboration is also a key component, keeping people connected and collaborating from wherever they are. ”
Employees are also benefitting from flexible working, according to the survey, with two-thirds of respondents (67 percent) reporting that they experience greater job satisfaction as a result. Furthermore, almost all respondents (97 percent) report that satisfied employees are harder-working and more productive. For all these reasons, remote working is now widespread across Europe, with 77 percent of companies surveyed offering their employees some flexibility in their working hours, and 68 percent regularly letting them work away from the office.
Methodology
400 business decision makers were surveyed with an online questionnaire: 100 each in the UK, France, Germany and Russia. For more information about the survey please visit www.polycom.co.uk/flexibleworking