Research shows staff put in longer hours from home than they do if they are chained to a desk in the office. On average, those at home work more than 45 hours a week, where as staff who go to the office every day do an average of 39 hours.

“It’s because they are more engaged,” says Dr Pete Bradon, head of research at Best Companies Ltd.

Best Companies data shows there is a higher level of staff engagement for those who work between 10%-60% of their time from home than there is for their office-based colleagues.

While home-working senior managers and managers both show an increased level of engagement, research shows that it is team members who benefit the most from flexible working.

The already high level of engagement for senior managers shows a slight increase from 93.43% to 94.81% when they can work from home for between one afternoon and three days a week.

A 3.42% increase for managers takes the percentage who are engaged from 84.69% for those in the office, up to 88.11% for those who are at home.

The most significant rise is for team members, 77.46% of whom are engaged when working from the office. A 5.46% increase takes this to 82.92% for those who work up to 60% of their time at home.

This increased engagement is reflected in higher factor scores for home workers, even in those areas which may seem unrelated to flexible working such as Fair Deal, which records employee satisfaction with salary and benefits. “Fair Deal increases because people see home-working as a positive bonus,” says Bradon.

“They think, ‘My manager trusts me’. It’s a financial bonus, too, because you don’t have to travel that day so you can spend that time saved working.”

The only exception to increased factor scores is Wellbeing. Bradon explains: “People seem to be a little bit more stressed. Working from home isn’t easy. It’s difficult to manage your own time. In a lot of ways being in an office environment is easier — you have people to talk to, to ask questions. At home you are on your own and that can be quite stressful.”

Do team relationships suffer because of time away from colleagues? Research shows this is another misconception. Those who are in the office with team-mates every day give a positive score of 71.3% for the My Team factor. This is 3.8% higher for employees who work for up to 60% of their hours from home, with a 75.1% score.

“Bear in mind these days most people spend more time with colleagues than with their partner. Working from home gives them a break, which is a good thing,” says Bradon. “If you are away from team-mates and have to do the job on your own, you realise how useful having them there can be.”

Flexible options give staff the choice of when and how they work, and can take the edge off doing longer hours, if employees can do so on their own terms.

Having the option of spending time working from home makes staff feel trusted, engaged and valued. Productivity increases and teamwork improves. So why doesn’t every organisation allow home working?

“People automatically say,

‘We don’t do that here because it will damage teamwork or because they won’t do any work’, both of which are terribly negative attitudes,” says Bradon.

“The old-fashioned attitude is that the time you spend in the office is more important than the work you do. The modern attitude is, ‘Let’s give people the freedom to work as they want to and they’ll get the job done’.”

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