INDUSTRY NEWS

7 May 2008

Virtual offices 'provide business value'

With some 41.4 million employees expected to spend at least on day a week working remotely in 2008, enterprises should create plans for establishing a virtual office if they are to remain successful with such arrangements.

That is according to analyst Gartner, which explained that some companies remain resistant to the increasing trend for remote working, but that a formal approach to virtual office working shows employees that an organisation is will to commit to work/life balance, something key to driving employee satisfaction and retention.

"Once a company decides to transition from a traditional physical office environment to a virtual one, a business case should be prepared that presents potential benefits for both the enterprise and its employees," explained Andrew Walker, a research director at Gartner.

He went on to explain that most enterprises still do not have formal plans for virtual office environments and support them on an ad hoc basis when they support them at all.

According to Business Week, a growing number of large enterprises are initiating virtual offices for employee meetings and recruitment drives.

"It's difficult to maintain a global corporate culture with people so spread around," Nicole Yankelovich, principal investigator at Sun Microsystems told the website. "Virtual world technology is a way to bring the company together to build a global corporate culture where people are on equal footing."

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