Lobby group Work Wise UK today marked the beginning of its national Work Wise Week with the launch of a new quality mark aimed at firms that embrace flexible working practices.

The organisation said the new Work Wise UK standard had been developed in conjunction with the TUC, Transport for London, HBOS, the NHS, BT and the Association for Commuter Transport and would provide a best practice framework for firms keen to embrace home and flexible working.

The scheme was welcomed by UK skills envoy Sir Digby Jones who, speaking at a launch event for the new standard, claimed that firms that attain the quality mark would receive major benefits in terms of staff recruitment and retention.

"Those organisations which achieve the Work Wise Quality Mark will be well placed to attract the very best staff, as the labour market becomes ever more competitive and society becomes increasingly aware of the benefits of flexibility and new ways of working," he predicted.

Work Wise said that organisations keen to qualify for the quality mark would have to submit to a two day assessment where they will have to demonstrate an understanding of "smarter working" techniques and a clear plan for encouraging flexible working practices.

The new standard, coupled with growing momentum for flexible working embodied by Work Wise's National Work From Home Day on Friday and recent legislation requiring firms to consider staff requests for flexible working, is likely to increase pressure on IT departments to provide secure and robust remote working and home office technologies.

However, Mike Hockey of IT services firm 2E2, insisted that those organisations that do embrace home working are seeing multiple benefits in terms of cost, productivity, staff satisfaction and the environment. "We are working with several local councils who have found that enabling home working and setting up hot desks for flexible working has had a wide range of benefits, allowing them to limit the environmental impact of commuters, increase staff productivity and actually close down some offices."

In related news a report from contact centre software specialist Exony argued that UK contact centres are largely failing to adopt home working, or " homeshoring" practices that could save them up to £5 per employee per hour.

"We’re way behind the US in our attitude to enabling contact centre workers to operate from home," said Exony CEO Ian Ashby. “Combining technologies such as broadband, enabling employees to both handle calls and connect securely with the corporate network, with tools to measure and manage agent and call performance in real-time, allows contact centres to reap the benefits of homeshoring."