Working from home: think working in the nude, watching too much Richard & Judy and getting grief from your colleagues.

The main barriers you will encounter as you attempt to set up a flexible working lifestyle are more likely to be social than technical.

Working naked, after all, is somewhat anti-social – especially if the neighbours catch you. And research suggests as much as 12 per cent of men and seven per cent of women wear nothing at all when they work from home.

Watching too much Richard & Judy, on the other hand, is bound up with the preconceptions of your colleagues, many of whom will believe home working is more of an opportunity for work avoidance than task completion.

Your first role as chief information officer is to smoothly manage such expectations and recognise that flexible working is a sensible method for boosting efficiency and not just exposing flesh.

The benefits of flexible practices, as our cover story shows this month, are clear. Greater control over the day and the opportunity to pick up the kids, for example, creates a happier workforce.

Happiness leads to a growth in productivity. And as you start to give people the technical capacity to work from home, you can also talk to facilities management about reducing office space.

Still, home working is not just about convincing non-believers and creating efficiency gains. Your second role will be to ensure flexible working does not become too addictive.

Setting rules for when people are expected to clock on and clock off is vital. Get the balance wrong and that hard work fighting for improvement in productivity will soon be lost.

Flexible working technology can be addictive. And every business executive knows someone (yourself, perhaps) who is guilty of using their BlackBerry too much.

Your, ahem, acquaintance should know that there are times when the scrolling and clicking should stop: on the beach and on the toilet, for instance.

Such activities make it instantly obvious to Londoners when other people are working flexibly.

For a start, the aforementioned BlackBerry addicts emerge from darkness into light on the Tube and shoot straight for their little black boxes.

Second, you can usually get a seat on the heinously busy Central Line on Monday and Friday mornings.

And that, believe me, is the biggest benefit of home working.