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The study conducted for The Australian by Hall & Partners Open Mind of 103 senior managers across a broad range of industries found nearly two-thirds expected flexible working arrangements to become more popular in the future.

Almost 70 per cent believed more people would work freelance or as consultants, but opinions were mixed on whether flexibility would help or hit productivity.

The survey was conducted across a range of industries including manufacturing, resources and energy, aviation, transport and healthcare.

Almost 70 per cent of respondents said there would always be a need for a central physical office.

A study released last month by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found that as of May this year there were 5.6 million adults who used the internet to work away from the office outside “working hours”, or to work from home rather than coming into the office.

ACMA claimed this comprised 51 per cent of the total number of employed Australians at the time, which increased to 70 per cent when considering workers with a university qualifications.

While respondents to the Hall & Partners survey were overwhelmingly supportive of more workplace flexibility for employees, some expressed concern about the dangers of reduced worker accountability.

More than 60 per cent believed there was a danger that too much flexibility in the future workplace, could damage productivity.

Just over half agreed that a major challenge in offering flexible work arrangements would be the loss of management control over employee time.

The great majority (74 per cent) believed that training and education would have to improve so that workers were better prepared for change; and more and cheaper childcare services would be crucial in the future (68 per cent).

A majority felt that the education system or their companies did not provide adequate training to prepare employees for the digital era.

While more than half felt their companies were well prepared for the digital age, a majority were concerned about managing and protective privacy (78 per cent).

While 87 per cent believed the internet was important for their company, only 44 per cent thought likewise about the National Broadband Network.

In September a survey of more than 4000 people for NBN Co, the company delivering the network, found that one in 10 Australians would work from home more often if they had a better internet connection.

Seek co-founder Paul Bassat told The Australian and GE’s Powering Australia Future of Work forum that while the NBN had an important role in promoting workplace flexibility, a greater impact would come from the increasing availability of cloud-based software, which made it much easier to access software remotely.

‘’Having really, really good bandwidth — fixed bandwidth as well as mobile bandwidth — is really important and I think NBN has got an important role to play,” he said. “But it’s primarily just because we want people to have as fast a bandwidth as possible and it’s going to make flexibility much easier.’’

Cloud computing allows organisations to provide collaboration and communication tools, software, applications and access to documents and databases to their employees from anywhere.

It also allows small organisations to use video conferencing, a service normally only available to big companies with significant IT budgets.

Source: The Australian