Work from anywhere initiative is live in Slovenia

Today I left the office earlier because there was the individual men biathlon world championships race taking place in the afternoon. I am a big fan of Jakov Fak and I wanted to watch the race from my own cozy sofa J. It was easy: I had not planned any meetings during the race time and I organized my work accordingly.

At Microsoft management knows exactly how important asset people for the success of the whole company are. Therefore a lot of energy and efforts are headed towards changes that empower people to work in the way they find most productive. I guess I am lucky that Corporate Social Responsibility is very alive within the company I work for and the leadership is by all means fully supportive and acts as ambassador for all our Citizenship initiatives. One of them, launched just yesterday by Microsoft Slovenia and Ypsilon NGO, is called Work from Anywhere. The initiative was immediately supported by Municipality of Ljubljana and Telco Telekom Slovenia.

In May 2011, Microsoft commissioned a study, which explored attitudes towards flexible working among 1,500 employees in office-based roles in 15 European countries. The results shown that while about a quarter of employees in small businesses regularly work away from the office, only nine percent of staff in companies of 500+ do so. More than half of flexible workers believe they work more productively outside the office. Whether it being flexible in regard to place or time of work, there are strong indications that employers can improve the productivity of their employees by allowing them to work flexibly.

There are some similar initiatives already going on abroad (for example: Home Office Day, AnywhereWorking) and we have added additional one in Slovenia, Work from Anywhere. We hope it will inspire Slovene companies and other organizations to reshape their work environment and culture of work in exchange for higher motivated and productive employees, better competitiveness and environment friendly business. We know there is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but we want to encourage businesses to find out for themselves the benefits of flexible work style and the shape that suits them.

I am inviting you to support the initiative and join us in Ljubljana on March 21, when the main event will take place. We named it Work from Anywhere Day (Dan za ustvarjanje od kjerkoli). More information about the activities that will accompany the event will be shared soon, till then you are warmly welcome to visit web page www.ustvarjamkjerkoli.org and support the initiative – as an individual or organization. It will only take you a few clicks.

I know biathlon will soon not be so important in my life but Work from Anywhere, enabled by my employer will help me fit my work easily around my personal commitments. I see it as a huge benefit. Not to mention also positive impact for the environment, but that is another story, worth writing additional column.