With inclement weather likely to increase due to climate change, there are obvious benefits in allowing employees to work from home, especially for small businesses. But is it always beneficial to the environment? Michelle Ward finds out.
As the UK experiences plunging temperatures and early snow flurries, insurance firm RSA has estimated the
bad weather could cost the British economy up to £1.2 billion a day, with
small businesses experiencing some of the worst pressure.
In order to keep up productivity, transport minister Norman Barker has urged managers to allow their employees to work from home and avoid the icy conditions.
"There are many advantages to both businesses and
employees for looking at more flexible working arrangements," said Barker. "Developing alternatives to the normal nine to five working day would be good for business, good for the individual and good for the
environment and particularly useful at times of disruption caused by bad weather and strikes."
Impact on small businesses
Employment law firm Peninsula said a study of more than 850 firms showed that 57 per cent of workers arrived in their offices, shops or factories late this morning, with the north of England hit the hardest. A survey of 250,000 staff showed that one in 10 workers were not at work today, according to absence management firm FirstCare, which said the figure was the highest on record for this time of year.
These figures are especially worrying for
small businesses since the impact of inclement weather is likely to increase as a result of climate change. More than half of senior decision-makers in small UK businesses admit their business suffered as a result of the winter weather last January, despite 78 per cent saying they thought their company was prepared to cope with the snow chaos. This comes from a survey of over 500 senior decision-makers in small businesses, commissioned by Citrix GoToMyPC and carried out by YouGov.
Growing trend
As more employers embrace the idea of flexible working hours, the option of working from home is opening up to more people. A recent study by NewVoiceMedia, which surveyed more than 600 UK small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), found that 23 per cent of senior decision-makers in SMEs allow all their staff to work from home all the time.
Of the respondents who are in favour of allowing staff to work from home, 60 per cent explained they believed it increased productivity and motivated staff (60 per cent) while 58 per cent said it allowed for better relationships with their employees.
Telecommute solutions
Jonathan Grant, ceo of NewVoiceMedia, said home working is especially beneficial for small businesses due to the decrease in cost associated with not having to maintain as much office space.
"Cloud-based telephony is perfect for SMEs as there is no requirement for onsite equipment or ongoing maintenance costs," said Grant. "Supervisors can effectively monitor staff regardless of their location and have the flexibility to add or remove users as the business demands."
Rob Lovell, chief executive of ThinkGrid, agrees. He believes businesses should use hosted
IT tools to facilitate home and mobile working, so that fewer employees are affected by the wintry weather.
"By giving employees cloud computing services such as hosted desktops and phones that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, organisations can ensure that workers are able to continue to keep working as normal even though they can't get to the office," said Lovell.
"Cloud computing essentially removes the barriers of the traditional office by allowing employees to work from anywhere, sharing and collaboration of data and applications."
Citrix also offers telecommute solutions with its GoToMyPC software, which allows employees to access information on their desktop from a remote location. The company’s GoToMeeting programme also makes it possible for meetings and presentation to take place entirely online.
Citrix sets out five key suggestions for small businesses to make the best use of home working: communicate in advance, equip employees with remote access and web conferencing technology, communicate with customers, consider alternatives, and put in place a business continuity leader. As inclement weather continues this week, the organisation urges employers to prepare so they don’t lose work hours.
Environmental impact
The use of cloud computing and web conferencing makes it possible for businesses to reduce
travel, thereby cutting carbon emissions, but there are still questions marks as to whether working from home is actually better for the environment.
A recent study from the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) finds that people who work from home increase their energy use by up to 30 per cent and can also lead to employees living further away from work, which causes more pollution when they do drive to the office.
"We hear a lot about the environmental benefits achieved as a result of working from home, however, on closer inspection it does appear that any environmental benefits are marginal," said Professor Phil Blythe, chair of the IET Transport Policy Panel and Professor of Intelligent Transport Systems at Newcastle University.
The Carbon Trust says it is too difficult to say whether or not working from home is always beneficial in terms of carbon emissions because too many variables exist. The distance an employee lives from work, the mode of transportation used to get to work, the number of days spent working from home, and the home environment of the employee can all play a part in determining the environmental benefit of working from home.
The organisation said businesses interested in allowing their employees to work from home should consider the different variables and ensure that they don’t
waste energy by duplicating workstations. One suggestion is having a 'hot desk’ available in the office for telecommute employees to use if they come into the office for the day, because one of the environmental dangers of working at home is maintaining two work environments, one at the office and one at home.
The head of Climate Change for the CBI, Rhian Kelly, said that working from home can provide employees with valuable flexibility and relieve some of the pressure on the transport system. "But looking at the environmental side, working from home isn’t always better," she said. "From a pure perspective of emissions, the research doesn’t always stack up on this issue. The evidence just isn’t conclusive."
She said people tend to turn on the television, radio, kettle and other devices when they are home, in addition to lighting and heating, thereby consuming more energy than if they were at the office where those devices may already be on. Potential for environmental savings exists, however, where someone will be in the employee’s home anyway, so working from home won’t produce any extra emissions due to heating and lighting.
The bottom line for businesses is that working from home can provide valuable flexibility, especially during inclement weather, but employers have to be mindful of the environmental impact. If employees are working from home, they need to avoid using excess energy and ensure that staying in the house is decreasing their carbon footprint, not increasing it.
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