While at first it sounded bizarre and many organisations are still coming to terms with the terminology and the new culure, flexible working does make sense from a business and facilities management perspective. It breaks the relatively modern concept of the office as a place to which people travel, spend the day working then travel home again. Flexible working poses a series of questions: Do certain people need to come to the office? Does the office need to take a certain form? Can we do things differently and more efficiently? Quite often, the answer is yes, but certainly not for every company. Flexible working does not replace one rigid system with another - it can enhance productivity and cut costs if it works for a given organisation but there is a danger in rigid enforcement if it is not actually more effective than the traditional office (see Figure 1).