Northern SMEs business owners are being encouraged to embrace new principles to support staff working remotely, whether full-time or in a hybrid model.
A new guide to Remote & Hybrid Working Principles for SMEs has been launched by the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), outlining six practical principles to support remote and hybrid working. With over half of employees in the North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humber region working in typically office-based environments and many spending a significant amount of time working from home or hybrid working, this guide has been developed to support productivity and the health and wellbeing of employees.
These principles are underpinned with rigorous research, which examined the impact of the pandemic on SMEs, as part of the ‘Phoenix Project’. This project was carried out by the Centre for SME Development (Professor Sue Smith), the Institute for Research into Organisations, Work and Employment (Dr Adrian Wright and Dr Gemma Wibberley) and the Research Centre for Business, Management and Enterprise (Professor Phil Whyman and Dr Alina Petrescu), here at the University of Central Lancashire. The guide is also endorsed by the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership.
"On behalf of colleagues at UCLan and across the partnership of Northern Universities, I am delighted to launch this guide of hybrid working principles for SMEs. Underpinned with rigorous and extensive research on the impact of Covid on SMEs, these principles are designed to provide practical support and solutions to SMEs. Additionally, the research is feeding into policymakers on how to level up the North/South divide and the crucial role of SMEs in this."
— Professor Sue Smith, Director of the Centre for SME Development
