Despite radical working-from-home moves by the UK's largest bank, most Irish employees still face the grind of the daily commute to the office, writes Getchen Friemann

It was the daily three-hour commuting hell that convinced Deirdre Kennedy, IBM's corporate community relations manager and mother of two, that something had to give. Unwilling to send her children to a creche for 10-hour days, she demanded flexible working hours and the right to work from home.

After all, what was the point in sitting at her desk in Dublin's city centre when technology enabled her to complete the same tasks at home in Naas? "All I need is the internet, a laptop and my mobile phone and as far as anyone is concerned I'm in the office," she explained.

Kennedy added that she would "never return to full-time commuting" and described life as far "more stress-free" now that she can spend two to three days a week at home.

In the midst of the dot.com boom of the late 1990s and early noughties, teleworking - the reliance on telecommunications and digital technology to work outside the traditional office - was held up as a vision of the future.

Far-reaching social and environmental benefits were predicted. The middle classes, liberated from the grind of the daily commute, would discover a more fulfilling life while reduced traffic jams would cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But today it is difficult to point to any company, even a computer multinational such as IBM, where teleworking has been encouraged for several years, that has more than 50 per cent of its workforce based out of the office for at least one day a week.

That could soon change, however, if the head of the UK's largest bank has his way. Last June HSBC's group chief executive, Mr Michael Geoghegan, threw down the gauntlet to the financial community, where the corporate culture remains entrenched, by declaring that he wanted to halve the 8,000-strong workforce operating out of the bank's global headquarters in Canary Wharf.

He challenged staff "in seven years to have 50 per cent of that building empty, sub-let to somebody else". In order to facilitate the transition of 4,000 employees working from home or on the road by 2014, Mr Geoghegan vowed to shift expenditure from staff onto technology.

"I don't think we're a really progressive, perceptive company if 8,000 people have to get up at some unearthly hour to come into the office and go home again. Technology should change our thought processes," he said. But is this a realistic ambition when all the statistics show teleworking has so far failed to fundamentally alter traditional working patterns?

In London, the number of people travelling into the city every day has increased by 6 per cent in the past decade, while in Dublin employees lose an average of nine hours a month due to traffic congestion, according to a survey by Chambers Ireland. Meanwhile, demand for commercial office space is on the rise with most banks aiming to maintain or increase their staff numbers in Canary Wharf. It's a similar story in Dublin with a number of blue-chip companies looking for massively expanded headquarters.

Declan O'Reilly of agents HT Meagher O'Reilly, described the threat of weakening demand because of an expansion of teleworking as "remote". He said that with the exception of Bank of Ireland, currently on the hunt for a suburban head office, the city centre remains the preferred location with law firms William Fry and Arthur Cox, as well as consultancy giant KPMG, among top companies looking to expand their headquarters.

"Major businesses will always want to be based right in the city centre," Mr O'Reilly predicted. "Not so much because of the prestige factor, but because it is the most accessible place to be."

McCann Fitzgerald, one of Ireland's leading law firms, recently moved its 475 staff into new headquarters in the docklands, thereby doubling the space it previously occupied in the IFSC. Law firms have been key drivers of the office sector in recent years with many big practices seeking enlarged headquarters.

Teleworking in this traditional profession then seems as distant a prospect as ever. And according to McCann Fitzgerald's managing partner, Ronan Molony, it's likely to stay that way.

"Teamwork is fundamental to what we do," he explained. "So I don't see how we can have people working outside the office on a long-term basis." And he added that technology can "never replace the importance of face-to-face contact".

Many in the financial services sector share his views. David F Guest, managing director of the IFSC-based bank, ABN Amro, emphasised the "teamwork" nature of his company's work and described teleworking as "not feasible for our purposes".

However, some top employers are committing to more flexible work practices - not out of any cost-cutting drive, but in order to retain key staff. Citi, the new name for the global banking heavyweight, Citigroup, employs over 3,000 people in Ireland and has been piloting a teleworking operation for the past nine months. Although the company is positive about the results so far, only a small number of staff will be eligible.

The chief factor behind this decision, according to Citi's HR manager in Dublin, Cecilia Ronan, is security. She said back-office employees process "trillion-dollar transactions" and there would be an "obvious security threat" if this was being done at home.

While Ireland's army of teleworkers is undoubtedly growing - there are now 40,000 people working outside of the office to some extent according to the Central Statistics Office - it seems there is little appetite in the business community for HSBC's radical work-from-home drive. The consensus, even among companies favourable to teleworking, is that the office will remain the seminal workplace for the foreseeable future.

According to Tony McGuire, managing director of System Dynamics, a partner company to IBM and one of Ireland's oldest IT firms, very few people in fact qualify for teleworking.

He described the long-running debate around the subject as "facile" and "lacking in clarity". Although his business delivers systems that enable employees to work remotely, he pointed out that "many, if not most, jobs in banks and most organisations do not lend themselves to working alone, at home." He suggested that rather than looking to technology to ameliorate the misery of the daily commute, employees should be demanding better infrastructure and public transport. Until that happens, he said, "the trudge will continue for most of us".