BT Backs Teleworking

LONDON -- BT has become the first corporation to support Work Wise UK, a major three-year initiative to encourage the widespread adoption of smarter working practices, such as flexible working, mobile working, remote working and working from home.

The campaign aims to revolutionise the way people work, and to increase significantly the number currently benefiting from smarter working. This in turn will lead to improved business productivity and competitiveness, reduced transport congestion and pollution, improved health, assisting disadvantaged groups, and harmonise work and family commitments.

As the first strategic partner, BT is not only underlining the importance of smarter working practices as a telecoms provider, but also endorsing them as one of the UK's largest employers. It has long been a subscriber to the benefits of enabling its workforce to work flexibly, remotely, on the move and from home, with some 11,500 of its staff working from home and 64,000 more equipped to work flexibly.

Work Wise UK will start with Work Wise Week, which will run from Wednesday 3 May to Tuesday 9 May, intentionally not the traditional working week. It will begin with a major summit at the QEII Conference Centre in London where 500 influential delegates from government, the unions and business will debate how to deliver a "smarter working Britain".

Employers and staff around the country are being encouraged to take part in Work Wise Week and try out smarter working practices, such as flexible working or working from home.

Phil Flaxton, chief executive of the IT Forum Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation which is behind the campaign, said: "It is innovative companies such as BT which are leading by example in the introduction of smarter working practices - we are very pleased to have them on board.

"The concept of smarter working has been around for many years, but it is the recent advances in technology which will have had a huge part to play in facilitating its wider adoption, and BT is at the forefront of these technologies both as a telecoms provider and as an employer."

BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)