Home featured Business Tech Cloud Emerging Tech Business Tech Don’t handicap your SMB in the war for talent, harness the business benefits of flexible work James Harkness November 24, 2017 (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start': new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src= 'https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f); })(window,document,'script','dataLayerContent','GTM-MDDQW4J'); By actively supporting flexible and remote work, businesses can position themselves as employers of choice in the ever-more-ruthless war for talent. Plus, if they’re seeking to be national or even global in scope, enabling ‘distributed collaboration’ – i.e. the ability for people to work together as a team, albeit remotely – isn’t just a strategy for winning the hearts of existing and prospective employees, it’s also a necessary means of winning new business and operating efficiently. In the past, it was customary for white-collar employees to commute to an inner-city office where they would work from 9am to 5pm. A multitude of factors, however, now mean this is not always a viable option. For example, increasing population density in or near city centres, combined with soaring property prices, is making it increasingly difficult for employees to live within a convenient distance of their workplace. Consequently, many workers are having to spend hours commuting by car, bus or train to work per day. Not only does this drain people of energy, it reduces the time they get to spend with their families, meaning employers are at risk of their employees arriving at work each day already demotivated – a recipe for poor retention rates . Wanting to strike a greater work-life balance, more and