Strongargumentsforlettingstaffworkfromhomeincluderis...

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    strong arguments for letting staff work from home include rising costs of office space, time lost to stressful commuting and a slow recognition.

    For the small Business, there are additional benefits too—staff are more productive, and happier, enabling firms to keep their employees and their employment costs to a minimum. It can also provide competitive advantage, especially when small businesses want to attract new staff but don't have the budget to offer huge salaries.

    While company managers have known about the benefits for a long time, many have done little about it. Yet this is now changing. When communications provider Inter-tel researched the use of remote working solutions among small-and-medium-sized UK businesses in April this year, it found that 28% more companies claimed to have introduced flexible working practices than a year ago.

    Technology advances, including the widespread availability of broadband, which now covers almost all of the country, are making the introduction of remote working a piece of cake. There are some very exciting developments which have enabled that.

    Yet while broadband has come down in price too, those service providers targeting the business market warn against consumer services masquerading（偽裝）as business-friendly broadband. "Broadband is available for as little as 15 pounds a month, but many businesses fail to appreciate the hidden costs of such a service," says Neil Stephenson, sales and marketing director at Onyx Internet, an internet service provider based in the north-east of England. "Providers offering broadband for rock-bottom prices have a bad reputation for poor service, with regular breakdowns and heavily congested networks. It is always advisable for businesses to look beyond the price tag and look for a business-only provider that can offer more reliability, with good support." Such services don't cost too much—quality services can be found for upwards of 30 pounds a month.

    The benefits of broadband to the occasional home worker are that they can access email in real time, and take full advantage of services such as internet-based backup or even internet-based phone services.

    By law, companies must "consider seriously" requests to work flexibly made by a parent with a child under the age of six, or a disabled child under 18. It was the need to accommodate employees with young children that motivated accountancy firm Wright Vigar to begin promoting teleworking recently.

    Marketing director Jack O' Hern explains that the company has a relatively young workforce, many of whom are parents: "One of the reasons was when one of our tax managers returned from maternity leave. She was intending to work part time, but could only manage one day a week in the office due to childcare. By offering her the ability to work from home, we have doubled her capacity—now she works a day a week from home, and a day in the office. This is great for her, and for us as we keep someone highly qualified."

    For Wright Vigar, which has now equipped all of its fee-earners to be able to work at maximum productivity when away from the offices (whether that's from home, or while on the road), this approach is not just about saving on traffic time or cutting them loose from the office, but enabling them to work more flexible hours that fit around their home life.

    Although Wright Vigar hasn't yet quantified the business benefits, it claims that, in addition to being able to keep key staff with young families, it is able to save fee-earners a large amount of "dead" time in their working days.

    "The main motivation behind adopting home working was to increase my own productivity, as a single mum to an 11-year-old," says Hargreaves. "But I soon realised that, as most of our business is done on the phone, email and at off-site meetings, we didn't need offices at all. We're now saving 16,000 pounds a year on rent, plus the cost of utilities, not to mention what would have been spent on the way."

55. Which of the following is the benefit of remote working?

   A. More budget for small companies   

   B. New employees and stable staff

   C. Rising costs of office space     

   D. Time spent on the heavy traffic

56. From the research conducted by the communications provider Inter-Tel, we learn that _______.

   A. more employees work to full capacity at home

   B. employees show a growing interest in small businesses

   C. more businesses have adopted remote working solutions

   D. attitudes towards IT technology have changed

57. What is Neil Stephenson's advice to firms contracting internet services?

   A. They look for reliable business-only providers.

   B. They contact providers located nearest to them.

   C. They carefully examine the contract.

   D. They contract the cheapest provider.

58. The accountancy firm Wright Vigar promoted teleworking originally in order to _______.

   A. present a positive image to prospective customers

   B. support its employees with children to care for

   C. attract people with IT knowledge to work for it

   D. reduce operational expenses of an office

59. According to marketing director Jack O' Hen, teleworking enabled the company to _______.

   A. enhance its market image     

   B. reduce its costs

   C. keep highly qualified staff     

   D. minimise its office space

60. What is the main topic of this passage?

   A. How businesses view hi-tech.

   B. Relations between employers and employees.

   C. How to cut down the costs of small businesses.

   D. Benefits of the practice of teleworking.

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