Well over half (63%) of senior executives say they trust their employees to remain productive when working away from the office, a Citrix-commissioned YouGov survey has shown. The research, which was carried out among over 200 UK-based SME decision-makers, highlights a growing acceptance of flexible working within businesses.
A further 28% of those polled also agreed that enabling staff to work flexibly can play an important role in improving their work-life balance, making them less likely to miss important deadlines.
Overall, a quarter (25%) of executives report being under more pressure to introduce or increase mobile, flexible working practices than they were five years ago, predominantly due to employee demand (28%) and the need to reduce budget such as travel costs (17%).
While some executives were less trusting when it came to allowing employees to work outside of the office, 21% still conceded that having a flexible working policy makes sense for business continuity.
“As well as meeting demand to improve individuals’ work-life balance, the growing acceptance of flexible working among senior teams shows managers are now realising the commercial advantages it offers,” says Andrew Millard, senior director marketing, EMEA, SaaS division at Citrix.
“In the BYOD era, employees using virtual technologies can work just as effectively away from the office as they would within it – in most cases contributing to lower travel and office costs for the business.”