London (UK)
Remote Employment News Release
In what could be the largest mass absence from work for a generation, an estimated five million people will not be going to work this Friday, 15th May. None of them will be calling sickies, skiving or making excuses. In fact, their bosses may even be joining them and taking work home for the day, on National Work from Home Day 2009.
Work Wise Week promotes smarter working practices, such as flexible, remote and mobile working, and working from home. It aims to give half the working population, some 14 million people, the opportunity to work smarter by 2011.
The week includes Mobile Office Day and Remote Office Day to encourage people to work while on the move and to use remote working instead of travelling to a central office. National Work from Home Day on Friday, May 15 is to persuade people to work from home on that day, instead of commuting to their usual place of work.
To coincide with National Work from Home Day, Remote Employment has launched The Home Worker Awards to highlight how home working benefits the British public and their working life.
Remote Employment, a web service dedicated to flexible and home based working, believes that the traditional ‘office’ is on the verge of a workplace revolution. Century-old established, outdated working cultures and traditions will break down. They are wasteful in terms of resources and time, damaging in terms of the environment and global warming, unhealthy in terms of worker wellbeing, and frustrating in terms of traffic congestion and public transport overcrowding.
Paula Wynne, Co-founder of Remote Employment and The Remote Worker Awards, advocates that the notion of nine to five might gradually vanish, with staff working ad-hoc hours around their home commitments. Offices will probably disappear and instead mini business centres could spring up near satellite offices. Increasingly people will work from home as organisations cut down their overheads on office space and use remote locations as the new-age workplace.
Adopting a modern day approach to our working lives will increase business productivity and competitiveness, reduce transport congestion and pollution, improve health by reducing stress, assist disadvantaged groups and harmonise our work and family commitments. Of course, remote working also gives employers the added advantage of recruiting talented individuals from anywhere in the country instead of just around their local office.
Paula said: “The recent emergence of 'virtual jobs' and ‘virtual communities’ is changing the way companies attract and retain skilled employees. With this new approach, the labour market is evolving towards remote working and working from home as viable options in their recruitment drive. It is also an ideal way to avoid redundancy!”
There are already around 3.1 million people working from home in the UK and this is expected to more than double by 2012! Remote Employment invites companies across the UK to support National Work from Home, by giving their employees the opportunity to work flexible hours or work from home.
For more information, browse www.remoteemployment.com or www.workwiseuk.org. Enter The Remote Worker Awards at www.remoteworkerawards.com for your chance to win.