In an ideal world a large proportion of people would prefer to work from home, or at least much closer to home than they currently do. The stresses of long traffic queues, delayed trains and cancelled flights all affect our physical and mental health and extend our working day.

Even without these pressures it’s a fact that “driving 25,000 miles or more a year on business is the third most dangerous activity in the UK”.

It’s not realistic for everybody to work from home, but society must start to think and act on the sheer waste of resource in people travelling hours to just sit at a desk in a corporate office.

By Lucy Elkin, Director of myworkhive.com, a social enterprise specialising in remote work. myworkhive runs a job-board for remote roles, and is developing flexible, virtual internships for Mums returning to work and people with disabilities.

Eight years ago, I stopped commuting. Moving to a rural part of Suffolk with my young family, I faced a dilemma; most jobs in my sector (I managed overseas charity projects) were concentrated in London, leaving me the choice of commuting for two-to-three hours each day, or finding a way to work from home. It was not a hard decision, as luckily I was able to work freelance from home for a previous employer. Home-based or ‘remote’ working became the norm for me. Yet I kept meeting talented people — often Mums, and people with health or mobility challenges — who had taken jobs well below their skill level or dropped out of the workforce altogether, because there were no good job options close by. So I founded myworkhive to help more people connect with the many employers who are embracing smarter, more flexible ways of working.

I see remote working as one part of this flexi-work ecosystem. However, unlike other more familiar forms of flexible working, such as part-time jobs and compressed hours, working remotely can require a shift in mindset for employers. Part of that is realising that it’s not just a nice perk to offer staff — it can also offer significant business benefits. Here are seven ways that remote working can benefit both your organisation and your team:

Smarter commuting is commuting that is good for our health and wellbeing. What this means won’t be the same for everyone but commutes that are physically active, commutes during which we can do something worthwhile and commutes where we have the opportunity to choose from a mix of options are ingredients of smarter commuting.

We have recently completed a research project examining the link between commuting and wellbeing and based on this, and other research, we give our view on what constitutes smarter commuting.  For further details about the research we mention please see our Commuting & Wellbeing study report.

A good way to judge what is a smart commute is to look at people’s satisfaction with their commute. Studies tend to show that commute satisfaction is highest for walking or cycling to work, lowest for public transport and somewhere in the middle for car commuting. It has also been shown that longer commute times are associated with lower commute satisfaction - more on which we will say shortly.

Winter is approaching fast and average temperatures are starting to plummet. The weather can be unpredictable and turn quickly, making roads treacherous. Ice, snow, heavy rain and fog significantly increase the risks on roads. Stopping distances can double in the wet and increase ten-fold in ice and snow, and if you can’t see clearly, you can’t react to hazards. Driving in bad weather can be lethal.

Brake urges anybody commuting to and from work to follow the A, B, C of staying safe in winter and bad weather conditions.

Avoid driving

If possible, avoid driving in snow and other treacherous conditions. Never set off when it's snowing heavily or if it’s forecast to snow, and avoid driving if you possibly can in other bad conditions like fog, heavy rain and ice. Consider alternatives like public transport. If you drive to work, speak to your employer in advance about home-working arrangements when the weather is bad, especially if you live in a rural area prone to flooding or snow.