A Northern Ireland finance firm, AKFP Group, closed its HQ for a full month in July for a ‘remote working initiative’
They found it boosted both staff morale and productivity
Staff were allowed to work from locations of their choice – the result was ‘they reaped the benefits of being able to change venues, eradicate long commutes into the office and, above all, increase the happiness of employees’
Potential setbacks to the workflow were minimised due to a cloud-based project management system that aided the effectiveness of remote working as staffers were able to access everything required from the cloud to service clients as normal
Calls into the office were shared or diverted to an allocated mobile and clients were made aware so that face-to-face appointments were scheduled the month prior as part of a planning phase
Group director Roger Kennedy said: “All our clients and the whole team were really supportive of the initiative – all client queries were dealt with efficiently and in line with our service levels – working remotely enabled my team to spend more time with their loved ones and get out on a summer’s day, providing they had completed their task list”
A staff member said: “There is a high level of trust in the office and it’s a great feeling to be given the flexibility to do this – we did have to visit the office occasionally to review post, but that wasn’t a problem”
Hence, the firm is planning to roll out the one-month initiative again next year