London Businesses are Flexible Working Champions

Released on: May 29, 2008, 3:33 am

Press Release Author: Citrix Online

Industry: Internet & Online

Press Release Summary: . 84% of London businesses offer flexible working options,
compared to 74% nationwide
. 64% of London businesses allow employees to work from home, compared to 55% across
Britain
. 54% believe the government's plan to extend flexible working to parents of older
children is a good idea, compared to 52% national average


Press Release Body: Amersham, UK. - 29th May, 2008: London is leading Britain in
embracing flexible working in the workplace, with 84% of London-based businesses
saying they have introduced flexible working options, compared to a national average
of 74%, according to independent research commissioned by Citrix Online. Over half
of London businesses (54%) also stated the government's plan to extend flexible
working to parents of older children is a good idea, compared to 52% nationally. The
study surveyed middle managers and above from 538 businesses across England,
Scotland and Wales, as well as 1,800 working parents.
London businesses highlighted staff retention (72%), employee satisfaction (71%) and
providing a work-life balance for working parents (58%) as the key business benefits
to introducing flexible working. Maintaining company culture was a concern for 35%
of London businesses, but only 8% thought that quality of work would suffer.
The study also showed that London businesses are leading the nation in embracing
technology to help employees work away from the office, with 61% (national average
57%) providing a laptop, 50% (32%) offering a Blackberry or iPhone, and 47% (40%)
providing software to allow employees to access their work PC remotely.
The 1,800 working parents who responded to the survey said they believe that London
businesses are meeting the needs of parents by offering flexible working options.
Working away from the office was the top benefit that working mums would like from a
job, ranking above a pension and an annual bonus. For 87% of dads, avoiding traffic
and saving time by not commuting to the office were the best things about flexible
working.


Denise Tyler, founder of Mother@Work (www.motheratwork.co.uk), the online magazine
dedicated to helping working mothers get the right balance in their working, family
and personal lives, commented: "Working parents worry about the effect that having
children will have on their career aspirations, so it is promising to see that
businesses are recognising the benefits of flexible working and introducing options
that will really help employees."
"London businesses clearly recognise the benefits of offering flexible working and
are leading Britain in actively exploring ways to enhance employee satisfaction and
retention," commented Bernardo de Albergaria, Vice President and General Manager,
Global Marketing and eCommerce, Citrix Online. "Travelling less and being able to
work from home are seen as key benefits by employees, so enabling them to access
their PC and collaborate from anywhere will help businesses offer their staff the
flexibility they desire."

Ends

Notes to Editors

Methodology
The research was carried out among 350 working mothers, who are registered users of
the Mother@Work website, and 1,450 working fathers through the FQ Magazine portal.
The business research was carried out by YouGov Plc. Total YouGov sample size was
538 middle managers and above working for private sector organisations of between 10
and 1,000 employees. YouGov Fieldwork was undertaken between 7th - 11th February
2008. The YouGov survey was carried out online.

About Mother@Work (www.motheratwork.co.uk)
Mother@Work is an award winning online magazine dedicated to helping working mothers
get the right balance in their working, family and personal lives. It was founded in
September 2003 by Denise Tyler, a Brighton based journalist.

About FQ Magazine
FQ is read by fathers and men whose lives and perspective have changed as they've
entered fatherhood.

About Citrix Online
Citrix Online provides secure, easy-to-use online solutions that enable people to
work from anywhere with anyone. Whether using GoToMyPC® to access and work on a
remote PC, GoToAssist® to support customers, GoToMeeting® to hold online meetings or
GoToWebinarT for large online events, our customers are increasing productivity,
decreasing travel costs and improving sales, training and service on a global basis.
We have more than 35,000 small and medium-sized businesses using our products, and
hundreds of thousands of individual professionals as customers. A division of Citrix
Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the company is based in Santa Barbara, California,
with satellite offices and data centers throughout the world. For more information,
visit www.citrixonline.com or call 805-690-6400.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in
application delivery infrastructure. More than 200,000 organizations worldwide rely
on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance,
highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the
Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds
of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 7,680
channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was
$1.4 billion.

###

Citrix®, GoToMyPC®, GoToMeeting®, GoToWebinarT and GoToAssist® are trademarks of
Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered
in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks
and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.




Web Site: http://www.citrixonline.com

Contact Details: For media inquiries, contact:
Danny Whatmough, Wildfire PR
+44 (0) 20 8339 4420 or citrixonline@wildfirepr.co.uk

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