Businesses to continue Olympic flexible working

Nearly half of the businesses that operatedflexible working during theLondon Olympics say that they willcontinue suchpractices, personneltoday.comreports. Research conducted by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) has more or less confirmed earlier suggestions thatthe Olympics Games might create ‘a legacy of flexible working’. It revealed that 18 per cent of businesses operated ‘new’ flexible working initiatives, which encompassed working from home, compressed or altered hours. Of them, 43 per cent will keep the scheme going. Additionally, 37 per cent of the 1,000 manager polled by the ILM said that they experienced greater productivity and 48 per cent said that staff morale had been increased during the two-week sporting extravaganza. It’s a well-known fact that flexible working is a valuable tool in terms of attraction, retention and improving performance. Thereforeit’s not surprising that more businesses are adopting it; perhaps boosting their infrastructure with the help of external business IT support. “It is encouraging to find that businesses took the opportunity to trial flexible working practices and those that did found it far from being ‘a skiver’s paradise’, their people were productive and motivated,” said ILM chief executive Charles Elvin, according tostandard.co.uk. “With the Paralympic Gamesstarting in a few days, it’s another opportunity for businesses that didn’t trial flexible working during the Olympics to do so in the coming fortnight.”