Working from Home, IBM, The Australian, 10 April, 2008.

10 APRIL 2008:
John Stapleton
TECHNOLOGY experts IBM have become the first major company in Australia to encourage their employees to work from home at least one day a week.

The move has been applauded by academic experts and welcomed by staff.
This week Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick called for workplace flexibility to underpin all work arrangements. Her call came in the wake of the release of a study by Beaton Consultancy of 12,000 officer workers, the largest study ever conducted in Australia on the work-life balance.

The report found only half of Australia's knowledge workers were unhappy with their jobs, many were facing serious difficulties reconciling work and family commitments and less flexible work arrangements were directly linked to high levels of absenteeism.

IBM's Chief Executive Glen Boreham, who himself works from home one day a week, said almost everyone in the company now took advantage of the program. He said over the next decade the traditional workplace would disappear. With an ageing workforce and unemployment at a 33 year low workplace practices needed to change radically in order to keep and recruit gifted employees.

He said parents were working compressed weeks or job sharing, while older employees often wanted to stay but did not want to work five-day weeks.

``We are finding at IBM our most talented people aren't necessarily asking for pay rises, they're asking for time and flexibility,'' said Mr Boreham. ``Our managers negotiate with employees to come up with hours that suit both the company and the employee.''

Author of No Workplace Like Home, Dr Jane Shelton, applauded IBM's move. She said 2.6 million Australians now worked from home part or full time and employers were finding technology meant there was no reason to chain their staff to a single office desk.

``More and more employers are moving towards flexibility for retention of staff,'' she said.
Dr Shelton said there was a certain level of trust and commitment required between the employer and employee to make working from home at least part of the time successful. While some employees missed the social aspects of work, including gossiping aroudn the water cooler, others appreciated the flexibility.

``It is almost like a reward in the value of the relationship between employer and employee,'' she said. ``If they are looking after family, young kids or older parents, which is quite common. then these arrangements really suit them. And it helps in terms of the skill shortage. Major employers are finding it difficult to recruit and retain people. If working arrangements are flexible for the employee in terms of being able to care for family that really helps keep people in their business.''

Director of corporate consultancy firm Parent Wellbeing also applauded IBM's move. Director Jodie Benveniste said workplace flexibility did not just benefit women, but there was a problem with workplace culture where bosses had to see their employees working. ``But if you focus more on outcomes, then you enable people to get the work done,'' she said. ``From my experience there are a lot of fathers who want to spend more time with their kids but don't get the opportunity. Unless men start putting their hand up at work and demand more flexible ways of working it is going to take longer for workplaces to change.

Ms Benveniste said this week's Beaton report showed people have too much to do and too little time. ``Because of that workers are feeling less committed, less satisfied with their job, they are more likely to want to quit and more likely to be off on sick leave.''

Professor Barbara Pocock, director of the Centre for Work and Life at the University of South Australia, also welcomed the moves by IBM. ``It's very good to see companies giving employees real capacity to engotiate what suits them,'' she said. ``IBM are amongst the global leaders on working from home. they have found it assocaited with much better work life outcomes. Because a lot of their bosses and managers work from home they have worked out it is good for productivity and have embraced it fully. It has a good effect both on the bottom line and on the well being of the staff and their families.''

Head of recruiting at IBM Helen Thompson, who works from home at least one day a week, was keen to emphasise that not just parents welcomed flexibility. Older workers particularly appreciated flexibility, as did the younger generation Y. She said the company's programs helped in both recruitment and retention. ``I am not a mother and I utilise it just as well as everybody else,'' she said. ``It is just as strong a reason for me to say with IBM. Work-life programs are much more than just mothers or parents returning to work, so many people have diverse requirements.''