That is National "work from home day" not "stay at home day".

So while most people have taken a day off to go shopping at some poor businessman's expense let me just point out that this is not a left wing conspiracy to give labour-day a new twist. The idea is to point out that savings can be made by reorganising working timetables to suit both businesses and workers. The savings include the environment more as a sideline than a definitive package, the main saving being the time taken on travel. If meetings could be arranged for one or two days consecutively so that travel was less the businessmen will also make saving on transport. “The benefits of working from home, even occasionally, are now widely accepted,” said Phil Flaxton, chief executive of Work Wise UK, the not-for-profit organisation behind the initiative. “Not only does it reduce the amount of commuting people have to do, enhancing their work-life balance, but many are actually more productive.

This Thursday (May 15) is National Work from Home Day when up to five million workers are expected to work from home across the UK.

Nearly 3.5 million people already work from home in the UK – 12.2 per cent or one-in-eight of the population – an increase of 600,000 since 1997. The highest proportion of home workers is in the South West with 15.7 per cent, followed by Eastern England with 14.4 per cent. The lowest is in the North East with 9.3 per cent, followed by Scotland with 9.4 per cent.

Using figures for employed people only (excluding self-employed), the highest growth in the past decade has been seen in Northern Ireland with 85 per cent, followed by London with 55 per cent and Eastern England with 45 per cent. The highest proportion of home workers is in the South West with 6.8 per cent, followed by Eastern England with 6.2 per cent. The lowest is in Northern Ireland with 3.8 per cent, closely followed by Scotland with 3.9 per cent. The UK average is 5.

1 per cent with growth of 36 per cent over the last decade.



“Although many organisations practise the age-old philosophy of ‘presenteeism’, they should open their eyes to the new work ethic spreading across the UK and try out home working: they may well be surprised.”

Home working is one of the smarter working practises being promoted through the Work Wise UK campaign, which is entering its third year. Others include flexible working, including condensed hours and nine-day fortnights, mobile and remote working. Work Wise partners include the TUC, CBI, British Chambers of Commerce, BT and Transport for London. It aims to encourage half the working population, some 14 million people, to be offered smarter working by 2011.

This is an initiative that should be commended; it encourages simple efficiency to the benefit of the company, the workers and the environment.

Tomorrow I will have saved a two hour round trip to my office, so I will work for an extra half hour and take the rest of the time off to sit in whatever sunshine is left.