Flexible Working Activities
Flexible working
Theme lead
Nottingham
One of the key aspects of the Digital Challenge bid was to bring the economically inactive into work. ‘Homeshoring’ is a system already achieving much in the United States, whereby call centre staff can work from home using VoIP and broadband. The project partnered with Cisco, UK Virtual Call Centres and a local community centre to pilot a homeshoring scheme with Boots. The Project was particularly suited to people whose lifestyles tended to be more home-based, including the over 50s, women returners, people on incapacity benefit and those living in rural areas of Nottinghamshire. It also aimed to solve many of the problems experienced by traditional call centres such as high turnover of employees, recruitment costs and health problems associated with high density office environments.
Objectives
Targeting hard to reach communities including council estates, inner cities and rural ex-mining villages where often people want to work but do not.
Broad objectives are to:
- create employment
- build sustainable communities
Achievements
A pilot working with Boots on the Broxtowe Estate has been successfully completed. A total of eleven people were employed for eight months. Four people have now been taken on full time by Boots and the company is considering re-establishing Homeshoring during the next busy period from September onwards. The pilot proved the technology works and that people working from home in disadvantaged communities can meet the service quality standards required by the private sector.
A flexible working seminar was held in Nottingham and was attended by a delegation from Bristol. The Senior Management Team from both cities attended (Leader of City Council, Opposition, Ward Councillors etc). The successful event culminated in a commitment for the two cities to work in partnership on the initiative at a strategic level.
One outcome of the day was an agreement to send a letter to Hazel Blears asking that Government consider the use of Homeshoring when designing its services and when going out to tender.
An Action Plan was agreed by the two Cities which in essence consists of:-
- Nottingham continuing to work with the private sector to develop Homeshoring
- Nottingham will look at rolling out into rural areas
- Bristol is committed to the use of Homeshoring for the delivery of public services and to launch a Slivers of Time market place
- Nottingham City and County Councils are committed to working with Bristol and learning from the Bristol experience
A budget was agreed with a work programme, targets, milestones etc
The evaluation of the Broxtowe pilot has been completed and is available on request. A number of communities within the Nottingham City Council area with the potential to become Homeshoring centres have been identified. The feasibility study for the rural hubs is completed and areas identified for development.
Developments
To develop the workstream beyond Homeshoring into a SMARTWORKING forum jointly run by Nottingham and Bristol seeking to form a national forum, including linking with existing forums and activities. Details are still to be worked out but the CNF and Green Shift are seen as useful models.
Workstream lead contact details
Peter Goodwin
Accelerate Nottingham
Castle heights
72 Maid Marian Way
Nottingham
NG1 6BJ
Peter.goodwin@acceleratenottingham.com
Stephen Hilton
Connecting Bristol
e-Office
1st Floor Prudential Buildings
11-19 Wine Street
Bristol
BS1 2PJ
Project/partners website links
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