A new study by ShoreTel has found that mobile working practices are becoming commonplace and has prompted the technology firm to urge businesses to focus on using the right tools to make the most of out-of-office employees.

According to the recent research, there are only seven per cent of IT managers who now have no applications in place to allow staff to work from outside the office and over half (54 per cent) said their company had enabled "anywhere" access to corporate networks.

The IT managers polled indicated that virtual pirate networks are the most difficult system to maintain, while internet protocol telephony was rated as the second most troublesome aspect in allowing employees to operate outside an office environment.

Steve Timmerman, vice president of marketing for ShoreTel, said: "Organisations need to develop better tools to support remote employees, both to deliver high customer satisfaction and productivity, as well as to retain good people."

Recent research carried out by Interwise suggested office culture could be deterring some companies from implementing flexible working practices.