O2 staff work at home for a day in flexible working experiment

A quarter of O2's 12,000 employees based at the company's Slough headquarters have spent today working from home.

The move had nothing to do with being snowed in but was part of the communications company's initiative to find out how businesses can implement flexible working patterns.

O2 said that with disruption to travel likely in London this summer during the 2012 Olympics, one-third of the UK's businesses are expected to encourage their staff to work flexibly.

However, although O2 said there are cost savings for companies on overheads such as electricity costs and more than a third (39 per cent) of businesses said flexible hours made their workforce more productive, nearly eight in 10 organisations have no coherent plans for flexible working.

O2 business director, Ben Dowd, commented: "We believe a cultural step-change is under way affecting staff and businesses, as work increasingly becomes something we do, rather than a place that we go.

"Today's office-wide flexible working initiative is an opportunity for us to take the next step on our flexible working journey and tangibly demonstrate the opportunity and potential available to British businesses today."