Teleworking or home workers are not being given the same access as other employees to development opportunities, according to The Psychological Contract, a new report from The Work Foundation.

Respondents were presented with a list of development opportunities and asked whether remote workers in their organisations have the same access to these as other employees. Almost three quarters (73%) say they provide remote workers with the same access to training and development, but only around half (55%) always offer the same coaching opportunities. Fifty-one percent provide the same mentoring opportunities. Only 38% provide the same chances for secondments and 36% give them the same opportunities to experience cross-team working.

And while experts increasingly agree that a good psychological contract is an integral part of business success, only 13% of the organisations surveyed by The Work Foundation have an explicit strategy for sustaining it.

Almost a third (31%) of organisations said they had no strategy, 9% are working on one, 8% did not know what their organisation’s approach was. Thirty-nine percent had an informal approach to maintaining a good psychological contract with their staff.

The survey of personnel and HR specialists also found that few organisations explicitly recognised the importance of the psychological contract to business success. Only 11% made the maintenance of a healthy psychological contract with employees a part of their organisation’s core business objective.

36% said it was part of their organisation’s core business objectives, but in an informal way, and 13% are actively considering formal activities. Almost a third – 30% - answered a straight ‘no’ to the question.

The companies surveyed tended to judge employee morale by measuring changes in absence levels (81%), retention rates (81%) and staff attitude surveys (49%).