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Civil servants told to stay at home to help ease Olympics load

Posted by admin on Fri, 27/01/2012 - 16:12
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London 2012 Olympics
Staff across Whitehall may be forced to telecommute during the Olympics and Paralympics to ease the pressure on London’s public transport network.
 
Civil servants will be ordered not to commute to work for up to seven weeks to prevent the public transport network in the Capital from becoming over-congested.
 
Next month Operation Stepchange, the first in a series of “planning exercises” will take place from 6 – 9 February to make sure the technical infrastructure and remote computer networks allow officials to work from home.
 
One official told The Telegraph: “Working from home is not exactly rocket science, but we are approaching it as though we were preparing for nuclear war.”
 
Next month’s trial run is understood to be the first of three planning sessions ahead of the summer’s seven-week work from home programme. A briefing for civil servants also offers advice on “how to avoid Waterloo” if they need to travel to meetings in Whitehall.
 
An estimated three million extra journeys a day are expected as hundreds of thousands of additional visitors arrive in the capital. Civil servants will start their work-from-home regime a week before the Olympics begin in July and throughout the Paralympics.
 
Michael Stephens, UK general manager at LifeSize, the HD video conferencing arm of supplier  Logitech, said the extra stress put on the transport system would undoubtedly lead to severe delays, potentially costing businesses millions.  
 

“When that cost is factored in with a disgruntled workforce that is battling just to get into the office, businesses could be faced with a serious problem. Offering staff flexible working arrangements is an obvious answer.”

Businesses are also being warned to prepare for the effect of people simultaneously streaming and downloading data during the games.