Member Article

North East prepares to Work Wise

The North East will soon become the first region in the UK to stage a regional Work Wise initiative, which aims to consign the traditional nine to five working week to history. Work Wise North East will promote the wider adoption of smarter working practices, such as flexible working, mobile working, remote working and working from home.

Work Wise North East is being supported by many organisations in the region including One NorthEast, Government Office for the North East (GONE), CBI, TUC, and Women into the Network. The drive behind the initiative is to build further on the North East’s improvement in the UK Competitiveness Index, published last month by the Work Foundation. The campaign’s organisers have said that even a limited change in working practices and culture could lead to increased business productivity and competitiveness, reduce transport congestion and pollution, improve health, assist disadvantaged groups, and harmonise work and family commitments.

Jonathan Blackie, regional director, GONE, said: “I welcome this opportunity for the North East to lead the way with this excellent campaign. This gives us a real chance to demonstrate how working smarter, thinking about where and how and when we work can lead to further increases to our region’s productivity whilst allowing us a better focus on our work life balance and at the same time considering the impacts on our environment.”

Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK, said: “In this increasingly competitive global market, working 9 to 5, five days a week, at a central location is a rigid work structure which is largely dictated by culture. “It is actually wasteful in terms of time and resources, damaging in terms of the environmental impact, harmful in that it impacts upon stress levels and health, and is actually largely unnecessary considering the technology available today. “Work Wise North East aims to break down archaic traditions and make the North East one of the most progressive regions in the UK.”

The Work Wise North East programme of activities will be announced in the New Year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .