by Shane Henson — October 8, 2012—The London Olympics has acted as a powerful catalyst in driving the adoption of more flexible working practices in the city. Almost half of those businesses who introduced more flexible working to avoid disruption during the events plan to adopt long-term change, according to new research undertaken on behalf of Citrix, a developer of cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies used around the world to give people the ability to work anywhere, with anyone, and on any device.
The survey used to conduct the research polled more than 500 senior decision-makers in London-based businesses with fewer than 250 employees, or “small and medium-sized enterprises” (SMEs).
The decision by 13% of SMEs in the London area to opt for a different approach during the games was reflected by Citrix reporting a 38% increase in usage of the virtual GoToMeeting service over the Olympic period. At the time of the work, GoToMeeting was a service of Citrix.
The move to new working practices was met with a positive reaction by employees from 77% of London SMEs who implemented them. Only 5% met with a negative response. A full 45% also reported a positive effect for the business as a whole, with just 8% reporting any negative experience, says Citrix.
The research also showed that 56% of firms believe that flexible working is important to help attract and retain the best staff. Just as telling, 47% even said it will become even more important in the next five years. This was particularly evident among younger staff, with 72% of millennials (aged 18-34) seeing this as important, compared to 41% of the baby boomer generation (staff aged 55 and over).
