Today is a quiet day at O2’s Slough headquarters. Somewhere in the region of 3,000 UK employees are staying away from their desks and are working from home... or anywhere else they fancy. It’s described as the biggest flexible working initiative of its kind and involves a quarter of all O2 UK’s workforce.
As well as testing and demonstrating O2’s technology, the scheme will also test O2’s contingency plans to manage travel disruption and delays during the Olympic games this summer.
Ben Dowd, O2’s Business Director, said “We believe a cultural step-change is underway affecting staff and businesses, as work increasingly becomes something we do, rather than a place that we go. Today’s office-wide flexible working initiative is an opportunity for us to take the next step on our flexible working journey and tangibly demonstrate the opportunity and potential available to British businesses today. We practice what we preach, and by asking O2 employees to work together as a team to test the company’s flexible working practices for themselves, we want to show that there are no limits - no matter how big or small your business is. By sharing experiences from across our business, from business divisions to operations, we hope to encourage more organisations to help their workforce become mobile. ”
[O2 blog]