Greater flexible working could add £11.5 billion annually to UK economy

 

The economic argument for flexible working is quite clear – the UK as a whole needs to contribute to a culture where anywhere, anytime working is the accepted norm.
Jacqueline de Rojas
Area Vice President, Northern Europe
Citrix

Download the full Cebr report here

Citrix, the leader in mobile workspace solutions, today revealed the results from its study with Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) into the potential economic impacts of a more widespread ‘work from anywhere’ culture in the UK. The study found that 96% of the UK knowledge worker^[i] population that have the option of flexible working utilise this opportunity, whilst 83% would do so if made available to them. This could potentially add an extra £11.5bn per year to the UK economy through the more productive use of available working hours, the equivalent of 0.7% of GDP.^[ii] In addition, more extensive flexible working practices could save commuters £7.1bn, with a reduction in commuting costs and time spent travelling (which also has a value)^[iii].  

Benefits to today’s workforce

The research also revealed that there is currently a high demand from employees in the UK to work more flexibly. 94% of UK knowledge workers would opt to work from home on average two days per working week. If organisational culture throughout the United Kingdom changed to allow for this, there would be savings in commuter costs of £3.8bn, with a further reduction of 533 million^[iv] hours spent travelling to and from work annually (increasing these savings to £7.1bn the commuter value of time is taken into account). Such changes would result in an improved work-life balance as well as considerable financial gain for individuals.

Widening UK employment

In addition to improving the work/life balance of those currently in full-time employment, today’s report also indicates that the desire for more flexible working opportunities could deliver significant benefits to the wider UK economy by engaging people previously excluded. The research revealed that:

• 68% of those currently unemployed, retired, carers, disabled, long-term sick or a full-time house-husband/wife would be inclined to start working if given the opportunity to work flexibly
• Should this economically inactive part of the UK population re-enter the workforce due to a change in working culture, this could boost the UK’s GVA^[v] by up to £78.5bn (adding 4.7% to the total UK GDP)
• 60% of part-time working respondents indicated that they would be inclined to work more hours if given the opportunity to work remotely. With 745,000^[vi] part-time workers in the UK who would like to work remotely, this could potentially create an additional £1.6bn in GVA output^[vii]

Over recent years many organisations have become firm advocates of the benefits of flexible working and this study verifies the impact such a culture can bring to the wider UK economy. Technology now enables us to work from anywhere, at any time. It is time to move on from judging workers on how long they spend at their desks to evaluating them on the work they actually deliver. By realising that employees do not have to be in the office from nine to five, employers will reap the benefits of an even more productive, contented workforce – and as illustrated here, reaching a new, untapped pool of talent in the process. Businesses in the UK need to look very closely at the provisions they make for flexible working. Those that choose not to enable workplace mobility will lose out in the war for talent and could arguably suffer from lower employee productivity. The economic argument for flexible working is quite clear – the UK as a whole needs to contribute to a culture where anywhere, anytime working is the accepted norm. Jacqueline de Rojas
Area Vice President, Northern Europe
Citrix

^[i] Knowledge workers: those whose main capital is knowledge and, therefore, “think for a living”, e.g. architects, software engineers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, academics etc.

^[ii] This is based on the survey results that revealed 1) the proportion of employed that want to use flexible working and 2) the number of available hours per working week that these individuals could devote to productive work tasks because flexible working enables better time management and reduces downtime associated with, for example, the need to travel back to the office from a business meeting at a client site. 

^[iii] We examine not only this monetary cost, but also the value of these individual’s time taken up by commuting. This is quantified in monetary terms through the value which the Department for Transport has placed on commuter time, known as the ‘commuter value of time’.

^[iv] The potential reduction of expenditure on commuting expenditure and hours saved are calculated by mapping the survey results to the UK population analysed – 94% of respondents if provided with flexible working opportunity would on average spend two days working from home. The commuting time savings of 533 million hours equates to a 38% reduction in time spent commuting by the relevant population of knowledge workers.

^[v] Gross Value Added is a measure of economic output similar to GDP, but which excludes taxes and subsidies on products. It is the difference between gross output (the value at which goods and services are sold) and the cost of the externally produced inputs used to produce that output. GVA ensures the avoidance of double-counting when estimating the size of the economy.

^[vi] Applying the survey results, we estimate that there are 745,000 part-time workers within the UK that would want to adopt working practices that enable them to work from various locations. Please see Table 4, pg.34 of the report.

^[vii] This is based on the survey results that revealed 1) the proportion of part-time workers who want to use flexible working but currently do not have the option and 2) the number of extra hours they would work if provided with flexible working.  

_____________________________________________