Newcastle demonstrates teleworking's benefits

Kable

Published: 23 Feb 2006 17:55 GMT

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Newcastle City Council has claimed productivity gains for benefits staff allowed to work at home.

The council ran a three month pilot, named the City Service Work Styles Project, between July and October 2005 in which six staff, equipped with broadband connections, worked from their homes.

It released a statement on 21 February, 2006, saying that the workers were on average 25 percent more productive than their office based colleagues, and that absence levels were reduced from 53 days to 15.

In addition, all of the home workers reported feeling less stressed, healthier, focused on work and relieved that they no longer had to travel to their jobs. The six benefits would collectively travel 705 miles to get to and from work in one week. This would represent an annual figure of 29,610 miles, (based on a 42 working week year), and would support the council's Sustainable Travel Plan in contributing to reducing congestion and pollution.

Further gains were made by removing the time and costs for the employees in travelling to and from work. In addition, the arrangement has provided for a 25 percent reduction in accommodation needs in the Civic Centre.

All the gains were set off against set-up costs of £530-1,695, depending on how much equipment was transferred from the office to home. The council revenue costs for home working at about £1,060 per person per annum, while annual accommodation costs in an office are between £1,140-£1,507 depending on the location.

Workers were given desktop PCs and along with broadband lines, some were provided with thin client technology.

Newcastle's head of City Service, Ray Ward, said he wants to enable 10 percent of the staff — around 65 – to work from home.

Councillor Anita Lower, executive member for modernisation, transformation and regulation, said: "Enhancing the quality of life for the council's employees has to be encouraged through challenging conventional working practices and existing office arrangements. Work will start to roll out the pilot beyond City Service to the rest of the authority."

Newcastle has also changed the working arrangements for staff in the City Service ICT School Support Team under the Working From Home Initiative. While they continued to work on school sites, their base changed from the Civic Centre to their homes.

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