Mobile working delivers benefits

Pro

A new survey of Irish mobile workers has shown significant perceived benefits to mobile working practises. The report findings would also appear to explode certain myths about mobile working, particularly those around work life balance, relating to colleagues and career prospects.

Overall 75% of respondents said that mobile working has been good for them personally and 71% would recommend it to colleagues. The survey concludes that this supports the idea of an expanding “M-Generation”.

Other findings include 62% who said that there is no change to their working hours as a result of mobile working, breaking down in 16% who work more, 11% who work less hours, while 55% said that the quality of their work improved. The conclusion drawn by the report is that mobile access does not necessarily mean a 24/7 demand for availability, but rather than mobile workers can choose when to perform tasks based on ubiquitous access.

Something of a surprise was that female mobile workers reported being more comfortable working independently than men. Some 44% of females surveyed said they prefer to work independently compared to 30% of men. The male mobile workers preference for team work was also supported by the fact that men maintain more frequent contact with the office than their female counterparts, said the report.

Crucially, 33% of respondents felt that their promotional prospects have improved as a result of mobile working.

The research was carried out by Amarach Consulting on behalf of Vodafone Ireland at the end of 2007. For the purposes of the study, a mobile worker was defined as an employee who has their mobile communication cost paid by their employer, spends at least a portion of their working week in an office environment, works at least one day a week outside of their employer’s main office and has access to e-mail, at least, while out of the office.

With regard to who the mobile workers are, the report says that 65% are men and 46% are people managers. It goes on to say that the average mobile worker spends about two days in the office each working week, two days on the road and a day working from home.

“This is the most in-depth research ever conducted in Ireland on m-working and demonstrates that there is a clear cultural transition taking place which is rapidly changing the way our society views ‘work.’

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