The Olympics leave a legacy of workplace flexibility

The Olympics leave a legacy of workplace flexibility
On you marks, get set, work from home

As well as winning a vast number of medals and getting some new stadia around the country the 2012 Olympics has also left UK businesses with a legacy of workplace flexibility.

Remote working experts Citrix has found that nearly half (47%) of businesses who put a flexible working plan in place for the games plan to keep it or reintroduce it soon.

Of the those employees who were able to work remotely and flexibly more than three quarters (77% ) said they had a positive experience. Just one in twenty (5%) met with a negative response, and 45% also reported a positive effect for the business as a whole, with just 8% reporting any negative experience.

Crucially more than half (56%) of businesses polled believed flexible working is crucial to attracting the best staff with nearly half (48%) predicting that workplace flexibility would become even more important in the next five years. This was particularly evident among younger staff, with 72% of millennials (aged 18-34) seeing this as important, compared to 41% of the baby boomer generation (staff aged 55 and over).

"The survey findings confirm that the Olympics has created a flexible working legacy, with employers and staff reacting positively to new ways of operating, allowing them to be equally productive, wherever they are located." Commented Andrew Millard, Senior Director, EMEA marketing for the Online Services division at Citrix.