The findings of our 2010 Charity IT Survey and CFDG's annual salary and employment survey offers some interesting pointers about the changing nature of the workplace, says Daniel Phelan.

The publication of our annual Charity IT Survey has coincided with the publication of the Charity Finance Directors’ Group/Hays annual salary and employment survey. Comparing the two throws up an interesting confluence of information streams, which lends force to the notion of the changing nature of the workplace.

In our IT survey, the proportion of charity staff with remote access has risen from 30 per cent in 2007 to 57 per cent this year, to all intents and purposes doubling in three years. Meanwhile the CFDG/Hays report found that by far the most important benefit for all respondents was flexible working, by which it meant flexitime and the ability to work from home.

Clearly the now fairly well-established technology allowing remote access to internal networks and the growing acceptance of flexible and off-site working are combining to make a happier work force.

This is supported by the finding that turnover levels amongst finance staff has fallen to historically low levels, although it isn’t clear whether the remote access trend or the mean streets of post credit crunch Britain is contributing most to this. With over two thirds of responding charities showing no turnover at all and another 17 per cent with very low turnover, retention rates must surely be at an all-time high.

One of the key messages from our IT Survey is that mobile and remote working is on an accelerating trend. This appears to suit staff but will have implications in all kinds of ways. In the IT field, it must surely lead to growth in software as a service and it can only be a matter of time before this penetrates the heart of the finance function, however nervous finance directors may be about security issues.

Daniel Phelan is editor-in-chief of Civil Society Media Ltd