Yet again there is that perception of working at home not being work at all. The business segment on BBC Breakfast this morning had the correspondent and the interviewee exchanging tired old statements about "working at home - is it really working? Well, not if there are scereaming kids in the background."
After showing the cost to the British economy of the recent (and continuing) bad snow of between £250 million and a billion pounds, is anyone going to assess how much value to the economy there has been in workers taking advantage of the technology now available to wor for home during this weather.
Those workers who have access via the Internet and know how to use it can put in as much or more work from home than they do in the office. But without a company policy on and support for flexible working in this way, a piecemeal approach means some people work and some don't.
As James Clay points out in his blog
"What about those staff who did work from home? Will they get any benefit or overtime for the day that they worked, but others made snowmen and went sledging? Why should I work from home (because I know how and can) when everyone else is not?"
Flexible working practices can really come into their own in circumstances like this snow and bad weather - and have many other benefits all year round in terms of productivity, lessening impact of travel on the environment, work-life balance, retention of staff etc. And what we really don't need is people on the BBC and at the head of employers' organisations and work research groups rubbishing the commitment of home-workers.
