In my previous post I mentioned I have worked remotely for many years with frequent visits to my clients. Most of these were international, so remote working was a more obvious approach – but some were UK organisations.

Many companies in fast moving industries take a direct approach; they want the best people with the best fit for whatever job is in hand and hugely care where they are. I’ve seen this approach work time and again. It’s also true with more traditional industries where sales and customer support staff may be spread all over the place.

So how big a question is the working from home debate really? Not as big as it is made out to be, in my view. I would turn it round the other way – I think the question should be: what is the best way of supporting the business strategy?

Surely an answer to that is enabling environments that get the very best of your staff and encourage the very best out of the right people to want to work with you.

Everyone is different, everyone’s needs in terms of group time and solo time are different. The answer (I think) is pretty obvious.

Flexibility.

But flexibility where the focus is on both individual human and organisational concerns. Where there are opportunities to make work lives more productive and more purposeful and where the three axes of place, time and task all work together.