Work Wise UK has renewed its call for British businesses to embrace so-called smarter working practices after a report from the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) highlighted the benefits that can be leveraged.

Enabling home-based working is one way in which employers can more effectively meet the needs of their staff, the report suggested and both the EOC and Work Wise UK are keen to see the practice become more commonplace in Britain.

Indeed, citing the EOC research Work Wise UK maintains that British firms have fallen behind their European counterparts and has called for managers to accelerate their implementation of smarter working practices.

Sir Digby Jones, UK skills envoy, said: "The nature of work is changing and UK business needs to come out of the dark ages and realise that it cannot continue to use working practices that originate from the 19th century."

"It needs to modernise, change its approach, retrain its management and understand the benefits of new smarter working practices."

Work Wise UK was launched in May of last year and is to run for a period of five years as a not-for-profit initiative encouraging flexible working practices, including allowing employees to operate from their own homes.