24 April 2018 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal
The UK lags behind in the shift to flexible and remote working, putting more emphasis on effective meetings to coordinate scattered teams, according to a new report.
The UK lags behind in the shift to flexible and remote working, putting more emphasis on effective meetings to coordinate scattered teams, according to a new report.
'The Modern Workplace 2018: People, Places & Technology' by software company Condeco has found that across the world, workers are in the midst of a shift to flexible and remote working - spending more time working from home, on the move or from multiple locations.
However, the UK is significantly behind in embracing these trends, which could negatively affect worker satisfaction as well as holding back firms who are competing for the best international staff.
In two fifths of businesses surveyed, the majority of staff work flexibly at least some of the time. This figure is higher in the US (52 per cent) and Australia (43 per cent).
In the UK, the figure is 37 per cent and 10 per cent of companies don't offer flexible working at all. Of those that do, 30 per cent said that fewer than a quarter of their staff work flexibly, compared with 21 per cent globally.
The research also found that the Millennial generation, born between 1983 and 2000, have shaped the workplace to meet their needs. That means a space that is more open plan, with fewer barriers between desks and multi-disciplinary teams working together in 'pods'.
Sixty-nine per cent of those surveyed said they work in open plan, or mostly open plan, offices. The UK is more likely to have embraced open plan working than many other countries, with more than half (51 per cent) of UK companies in the survey saying their workplace is open plan, compared with 43 per cent globally.
This marks a significant change from previous generations, for example the cubicle office of Generation X or the personal offices of the Baby Boomers. The oldest members of Generation Z - born between the mid-1990s and 2000s - are now entering the workforce and they will likely move further towards flexibility, remote worker, and cross-functional teams with less hierarchy.
Peter Otto, product strategy and design director at Condeco, said: "Flexibility and remote working are increasingly important to today's workers. The companies that are prepared for those workers will be able to attract the most talented candidates, both from the UK and internationally."