The rules covering flexible working were published in 2002 and have been successful in their objective of providing increased flexibility to both firms and employees. The times when a worker’s hours are worked and the number of hours worked might differ greatly as employment contracts are prepared to suit the needs of both parties. The use of part-time, term-time and flexitime working has increased steadily over the past generation. Part-time work is the most utilised type of flexible working and almost every company now has some part-time workers. The education field uses term-time working extensively and flexitime is now offered by almost 25% of firms in the UK. One of the more controversial options within flexible working is allowing staff to Work From Home.

]Applying the flexible working regulations is in most cases at the discretion of the business circumstances involving a worker’s need to care for children under 16 (under 18, if disabled) or elderly dependents where the company has to “seriously consider” offering flexible working options. The member of staff has no guaranteed right to any of the options and has to make a proper application to his company to request it. A high proportion of these special circumstances, by their very nature, would appear to require a Work From Home option. While any moral company would be willing to help a person in these cases there are some significant issues to contemplate before granting the request. This is not an area that has seen any growth in the last few years. Only three per cent of staff Work From Home on a permanent basis and this has hardly altered since 2002 despite the advent of the modern Internet Business which uses state of the art technology to provide Online Jobs for its staff. The number of staff who Work From Home occasionally has increased steadily to about 20% of the workforce.

When an established non Internet Business is looking to switch some roles to Online Jobs it must first of all determine which roles, if any, would be suitable to be done at home. Generally these would be telephone based jobs in sales, marketing or customer service departments where an online client management system can be accessed from home or at the office. Also, some administrative, accountancy and personnel jobs could be done at home. If there are some roles suitable for conversion to home working then consideration must be given to the cost of equipping staff with the necessary level of technology to actually do so. This cost might also have to include training in the use of the technology.

In addition to the cost there are also some operational issues which firms must be happy about. The suitability of the member of staff to Work From Home is crucial as many people who switch to home working find that they miss the busy office environment or find it difficult to work in isolation away from colleagues and friends. It is important to keep the remote staff involved in the company wherever possible as a feeling of isolation can produce a fall in their performance levels. Management procedures must be adjusted to monitor this closely. Finally, depending on the types of job being switched and the firm’s line of business there may be problems associated with the removal of confidential information from the office.