[RichardCoulter]

Perhaps those who have accepted a position in Swansea particularly wanted to stay with the company??

The way that many businesses are having to make efficiency savings in order to simply survive, in light of the worst economic times in living memory, unfortunately, means that employees will be required to be ever more flexible. Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.

Expect to see more zero hours contracts, forced unpaid leave etc.

The next, more palatable, big thing will be homeworking. Large office buildings like Albert Dock, are very expensive to run. Think of how much it costs VM to pay the rent, NNDR, fuel, heating etc. It can cost thousands of pounds a year to maintain even one workstation space and that's before anybody has even been paid a wage!

If employees work from home a huge amount of time and money is saved.

With modern communication technology, web cams etc, the fantasy can become reality.

The employee gains by not having to pay travel costs and has more quality time, with journey times being cut. There are environmental/traffic congestion benefits too.

Why should people travel into the centre of Liverpool, when they can have a lie in, get ready and take a leisurely walk into their home office to complete their tasks?

It's a win, win, win situation!!!

There are some issues that will need to be ironed out, such as local authorities wanting to designate the offices as non domestic, therefore making them liable to Business Rates, employees may expect something towards their heating/lighting etc, customer confidentiality issues, insurance etc.

What do VM staff feel about, say, call centres like Albert Dock being run in this fashion?

The Government (DWP) and certain private sector companies (mainly in the communications field) are currently running low key trials.