Has anybody else noticed how full commuter train station car parks are at the moment? Perhaps some employees are trying to get some extra work in before the festive break, but in the current economic climate it looks more like no one wants to be missing from the office in case they are removed for the long term. How soon will the flexibility and freedom enjoyed by many workers turn into a perceived liability, and presentee-ism is seen as necessary for holding onto a job.

Previous Quocirca research regularly shows that not only do individuals benefit from more flexible, remote and mobile working, but the organisation gains in terms of improved employee productivity, reduced travel and environmental costs, and more satisfied and motivated workers. So surely this is not the time to be backsliding into bad old ways?

Right now, in harsh and worsening economic conditions, organisations should be even more aware of where they are currently getting, or might in the future achieve, efficiency gains. But this means taking control of and improving visibility of business processes, not simply the visibility of the employees engaged in them. If an organisation has improved productivity from flexible working, now is not the right time to expect or encourage previously mobile workers to return unproductively to base.

This comes down to attitude and confidence, for those in management positions and of course those being managed.  It is incumbent on management right from the top of the organisation to ensure that even in challenging times, everyone is motivated to do the right thing and support the business as well as their own position.

However one fly in the flexible working ointment that crops up in Quocirca’s research, is the fear that having many employees working remotely - particular from home - will dilute the company culture, and while such working might be effective, they would lose a feeling of “belonging”. This also affects the organisation, especially where a strong positive company culture, from “can do” attitudes to the prompt and friendly answering of phone calls, need reinforcement for all employees, in the office or elsewhere.

But that feeling of belonging to the workplace can be re-engendered using multimedia collaboration and conferencing tools, not just the phone and email, to reconnect the remote individuals with their colleagues. Many of these can also be integrated into the smallest mobile devices – smartphones and PDAs - making those workers that have to be out and about, such as field service engineers and sales staff, feel more involved.  After all, plenty of employees already use social networking tools to connect to friends, why not to colleagues as well?

Whether we call this unified communications, Web 2.0, convergence or collaboration does not matter. The tools that vendors in the industry are integrating – telephony, video or audioconferencing and messaging, all orchestrated by the “presence” or context of each individual – are in most cases sophisticated and powerful. However the efforts of even the best technology are undone by failings in the process, or lack of impetus from the people involved.

A positive management attitude is required to inspire as well as direct dispersed teams and mobile individuals, not simply ply them with technology. That will help ensure that journeys are made to the workplace when they need to be and not simply for job security reasons.

By Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst, Communication, Collaboration and Convergence