O2 employees go free range

The Next Web:

O2 is today launching what’s it’s calling “the biggest flexible working initiative of its kind,” as it lets a quarter of its 12,000-strong workforce work remotely for the day.
Employees at the UK mobile operator’s Slough HQ will carry out their daily duties as normal, except they’ll be working from home – or another suitable ‘remote’ location, as O2 closes the doors and switches off the lights at its 200,000 sq ft offices near London.

It’s an interesting experiment. Most knowledge workers can work from anywhere with WiFi, so long as they have a laptop and a mobile phone with them. Personally, I think home working is over-rated. Nice for a day or two a week, but no more than that. I’d rather be out and about, working amongst my contents, clients and the industry I’m part of. Journalists – to my mind – spend far too much time in the office, and not nearly enough out and about in the industry they’re reporting on.