Portal to support remote working on way

A consortium of workplace service suppliers is developing an online hub to promote flexible working and to provide tools that help employees work away from their offices.

The Anywhere Working Consortium, announced this week by Transport Minster Norman Baker, will launch the hub in January next year in a bid to educate organisations on the technologies and resources that support out-of-office working.

The site, set for a January 2012 launch, is intended to promote alternatives to travel, will include training, trial technology, best practice case studies and special offers on products provided by the consortium members.

The development of the hub will be followed by a series of events for employers and employees during Anywhere Working Week, which will take place in February next year

During this week the consortium will announce a series of mechanisms for measuring and bench-marking the cost, time and carbon savings achieved as a result of organisations embracing flexible working.

The founding members of the group are Business in the Community (BITC), Microsoft, Nuffield, Regus and Vodafone, while the initiative is backed by the Department for Transport, Transport for London and the TUC.

"In a world where communication technologies offer the means to travel around the world in an instant without travelling at all, encouraging individuals and business to think flexibly about what being there╒ means is simply the smart thing to do," said Baker, the Lib Dem member for Lewes.

"The advantages are undeniable - productivity and efficiency savings, a reduced carbon footprint, employee wellbeing - and are for both companies and their workers.

"And they will be particularly valued during periods of severe winter weather or the 2012 Olympic Games. As a willing advocate for the virtual transport industry, I wholeheartedly support the Anywhere Working consortium."

Meanwhile a poll conducted by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) found that 36% of workers would like to be offered more flexibility by their employers and a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, called Managing Tomorrow's People, found that 47% of more than 1,150 UK professionals surveyed rated flexible working very favourably.

"Despite the economic backdrop, many organisations still encourage their workforce to frequently travel across the country for meetings,: commented Microsoft UK MD and consortium member Gordon Frazer. "This is often an expensive, inefficient use of time which has adverse effects on both employees and the environment.

Interested parties can record their interest and receive further information at BITC's ways2work portal.