A third of us could be working outside of the office instead of facing the daily commute.
One in three employees could be working remotely by the end of 2012, which may prompt companies to invest further in offsite backup storage technology to ensure staff can access vital portals and intranet services.
Predictions from Flexibility.co.uk suggest that as many as 30 per cent of British workers will be logging on to their business’ systems and networks from locations outside of the office as the year wears on, up from the current figure of 20 per cent.
This trend for working away from the traditional workplace is expected to be driven by the increase in travel congestion caused by the London Olympics this summer, while the rising cost of travel will also deter many employees from their daily commute.
Dr Steven Turner, vice president of IT optimisation at Intergence, commented: "From our experience, we are seeing more and more employees being encouraged to work from home to reduce traffic congestion and their carbon footprint.
"Indeed, many offices are now becoming ‘virtual’ offices with the majority of staff being home-based for better efficiency and to provide an improved work-life balance for the individual. Transport costs are also a major factor as fuel prices and train fares continue to rise relentlessly," he explained.
But businesses with offices in more rural parts of the country may find it harder to offer their staff flexible working because of a lack of high speed internet access.
"This means that local users must tolerate low bandwidth connections to access resources from their head office or data centre. Wide Area Network optimisation covers many areas which are of significant interest to companies with remote branch offices and who are struggling with performance," added Dr Turner.
Firms that need to improve their internet access could also step up their data protection procedures at the same time to ensure vital information cannot be hacked, stolen or lost from company networks.