O2 experiment finds more than one-third of staff work better remotely

3,000 workers stayed at home as O2 closed its head office in the remote working experiment, which also saved 2,000 hours of commuting time

An O2 experiment in remote working has found that more than a third of staff (36 per cent) said that they were more productive working at home than they would have been in the office.

O2 closed its head office for a day last month as part of the experiment, forcing 3,000 employees to work remotely.

The firm said that part of the reason for the closure was to test its contingency planning for this summer's Olympics Games, which are expected to cause widespread disruption to businesses as staff struggle to complete their normal journeys to work.

Some 800,000 additional people are expected to use public transport on the busiest day of the Olympics, according to the chief economist at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets.

O2 reported that 88 per cent of staff felt that they had been at least as productive as a normal office day.

The company prepared its network for the test, ensuring that it was able to support the huge increase in virtual workers by upgrading its infrastructure.

O2 also automatically redirected traffic between servers in the north and south of the country to ensure that the load was spread efficiently and that there were no local bottlenecks.

Ben Dowd, business director for O2, said that the experiment proved that it is possible to cope with even the severest disruptions with proper contingency planning.

"The success of O2's experiment extends much further than just allowing some of the workforce to stay at home and work. It proves that with the right thinking and planning, even the largest organisations can protect themselves from the most severe disruptions to their business.

"It demonstrates that the principles underlying flexible working really are the principles that will build the future of work, and determine the way that people, technology and buildings interact in the decades and centuries ahead."