Analyst firm Gartner has warned companies that are slow to adopt flexible working practices that they will struggle to recruit and retain skilled staff. The firm based its warning on the findings of its new research, published on the eve of last Friday’s National Work From Home Day, an event organised by lobby group Work Wise UK to highlight the benefits of teleworking.

While many firms profess to be in favour of flexible working, most have yet to take any practical steps to implement it, according to experts.

Business psychologist Kate Keenan said: “A lot of firms put policies in place, but do little to make it work. It is not that they are against staff working from home, but they find the whole issue of working out how to manage people they cannot see inconvenient – it is a whole mindset change for a lot of managers.”

While cultural barriers to teleworking persist, technological obstacles have largely been overcome. The widespread availability of low-cost, high-speed broadband connections that can support voice over IP, instant messaging, web and video conferencing, as well as email, means it is now feasible for workers to stay in constant touch with managers and colleagues from wherever they happen to be.

Gartner believes a new generation of “digital natives” – younger people used to communicating via the web from an early age – will demand flexible working and drive adoption of new collaboration tools by their employers.

Gartner vice-president and fellow Diane Morello said corporates should “go with the flow” when responding to user pressure for presence-aware apps, social networking tools and wikis to support flexible working.

“IT organisations that attempt to shut down those tools, absolve themselves of [support] responsibility, or be very noble about the notion of security and policy, will do so at the expense of their relevance and value,” Morello said.

Cisco’s Mik Stevens advised IT departments to ease the support burden by providing full training on new remote connectivity tools and systems. “If staff do not have the facility to help themselves, there will be more pressure on IT to support them,” he said.

Gartner is this week holding its Gartner Symposium and ITxpo in Barcelona, Spain.