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For the small business, there are additional benefits toostaff are more productive, and happier, enabling firms to keep their headcounts and their recruitment costs to a minimum. It can also provide competitive advantage, especially when small businesses want to attract new staff but dont have the budget to offer huge salaries. While company managers have known about the benefits for a long time, many have done little about it, sceptical of whether they could trust their employees to work to full capacity without supervision, or concerned about the additional expenses teleworking policies might incur as staff start charging their home phone bills to the business. Yet this is now changing. When communications provider Inter-Tel researched the use of remote working solutions among small-and-medium-sized UK businesses in April this year, it found that 28% more companies claimed to have introduced flexible working practices than a year ago. The UK network of Business Links confirms that it too has seen a growing interest in remote working solutions from small businesses seeking its advice, and claims that as many as 60-70% of the businesses that come through its doors now offer some form of remote working support to their workforces. Technology advances, including the widespread availability of broadband, are making the introduction of remote working a piece of cake. If systems are set up properly, staff can have access to all the resources they have in the office wherever they have an internet connection, says Andy Poulton, e-business advisor at Business Link for Berkshire and Wiltshire. There are some very exciting developments which have enabled this. | 
