A large increase in email traffic across Wales' broadband network during the winter freeze highlights how widespread the practice of working from home has become, according to Ieuan Wyn Jones, the country's deputy first minister.

Harnessing the power of technology – through the promotion of video conferencing, for example – to enable more people to work from home is one of the various ways the nation could cut its carbon emissions, according to the government's environmental advisers.

Despite being on holiday, over a third of the population spent time working from home during the Christmas and New Year period.

A new poll has discovered that the gap between the intention to provide working-from-home options and actually providing them is large.

Over a third of people who work in the UK admitted that they either worked from home or checked their work emails from home over the 2009 Christmas holiday period.

Business representatives in Wales are urging enterprises to turn to "contingency plans" – such as setting up employees to work from home – during the cold snap. The Welsh spokesperson for the Federation of Small Business issued his comments amid concerns that smaller firms are being particularly affected by freezing weather conditions.

Business bosses are being urged to let staff work from home where possible, rather than forcing them to struggle to the office amid freezing weather and treacherous conditions on the nation's roads. If homeworking is not an option, according to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), then employees shouldn't lose pay or be forced to use […]