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New Working Practices to be Trialled in a Week
10 Apr 2007
Organisations and employees across the UK, both public and private, are being invited to take part in the second annual Work Wise Week (May 16 to 22) to continue helping create a ‘smarter’ working Britain. This includes allowing staff to work from home on Friday May 18, National Work from Home Day.
Work Wise Week is being staged by Work Wise UK, a major five-year not-for-profit initiative, supported by the TUC and CBI, to encourage the widespread adoption of smarter working practices across the UK. This will revolutionise the way people work and increase business productivity and competitiveness, reduce transport congestion and pollution, improve health, assist disadvantaged groups, and harmonise work and family commitments.
“The age of working 9 to 5, five days a week, from a central location, is for many fast coming to an end,” said Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK. “This rigid work structure, which is largely dictated by culture and nothing else, is wasteful in terms of time and resources, damaging to the environment, and harmful in that it impacts upon stress levels and the health of employees.”
Many smarter working practices are very simple to implement, and it is these that organisations are being encouraged to try during Work Wise Week.
For example: Allowing staff to come in either an hour later or an hour earlier, with a reciprocal hour shift at the end of the day. This would enable staff to avoid the busiest travel times, effectively staggering the rush hour and making the journey far more tolerable for everyone.
Other examples include: Allowing staff (who usually have a one hour lunch break) to take a half hour lunch break each day, and then let them leave at 3.00pm on the last day.
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