DfT site encourages flexible working to reduce travel

Mark Smulian | Jan 18, 2012 | Comments 0

The Department for Transport has launched a website aimed at encouraging public and private bodies to adopt flexible working practices that will reduce the need for their staff to travel.

Anywhere Working will provide advice, guidance, case studies and online training

Transport minister Norman Baker said: “It’s simply not necessary for us to always trudge to and from meetings when modern technology allows you to circumnavigate the globe virtually from the comfort of your front room, local coffee shop or when you’re on the move.

“Working flexibly by using video conferences, webinars or cloud computing can help increase productivity as well as employee wellbeing, not to mention dramatically reducing our carbon footprint.”

Site users will have the opportunity to win or redeem rewards from business partner organisations involved in the site.

A number of public sector organisations have already taken action to reduce the need for staff travel and are shown among the site’s case studies.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has set up a laptop remote access service for up to 1,200 staff that can handle 500 concurrent connections. Its BlackBerry service provides a further 500 staff with email facilities. Audio and limited video conferencing is also available.

According to the department, these measures have reduced the need for office space and will eventually reduce its accommodation costs.

Flexible working has helped it to retain good staff who want to work at unconventional times, for example those with caring responsibilities.

The Environment Agency has a target to reduce overall mileage by 25% from 2005/06 levels.

It used an intranet site and e-mails to let staff know the reasons for this commitment and also used team meetings and internal magazines to communicate with field-based staff who lack regular internet access. Messages were also inserted into payslips.

Over the last five years, the agency has reduced total business mileage by 19.3m miles (33%) and saved around 5,000 tonnes of CO₂.