'Office culture' slowing remote working adoption

UK employees have highlighted 'office culture' as the main reason for the slow adoption of remote working and green practices, according to research from Interwise. 

The findings form part of an ongoing study into employee attitudes towards the changing work environment.

Some 30 per cent of respondents said that corporate culture, rather than technological impediments, is the barrier to their employer's adoption of remote working practices. A quarter cited the same reason for the slow adoption of green initiatives.

"Culture could be the most difficult of all barriers to overcome, beyond technology or cost," said Tony Gasson, international vice president at Interwise.

Gartner vice president and fellow Diane Morello added: "Companies that do not embrace remote working will find it difficult to recruit and retain staff. 

"Corporates should respond to user pressure for presence-aware applications, social networking tools and wikis to support flexible working.

"IT organisations that attempt to shut down those tools for security and policy reasons alone will do so at the expense of their relevance and value."

While connectivity, productivity and cost savings are major reasons for investing in tools that support remote and mobile workers, other benefits may prove to be just as valuable.

Companies can easily implement stay-at-home policies in the event of a transportation or public health threat, for example, without dramatically disabling the business.

Other reasons for slow uptake of remote working cited in the research were lack of enabling technologies adopted in the work environment, reluctance to give up face-to-face social interaction and management distrust of remote workers.

Only half of employees said they were equipped to work remotely, despite considering that over half of the meetings they attend do not need to be in person.