Skills Envoy Sir Digby Jones has warned that UK businesses must come out of the “dark ages” and adopt flexible working practices.

The former CBI director general made the comment when signing up to the Work Wise UK Concordat, backing the implementation of flexible working.

Sir Digby said: “The nature of work is changing, and UK business needs to come out of the dark ages and realise that it cannot continue to use working practices that originate from the 19th century. It needs to modernise, change its approach, retrain its management, and understand the benefits of new smarter working practices.

“The UK faces some huge challenges in the coming years including addressing the issues of skills shortages. Recruiting and retaining good staff is going to become an increasing problem as the population ages and the marketplace becomes ever more complex and competitive.

“To be able to compete in the labour market, and attract the skills they need, businesses are going to have to adopt smarter working. This is not rocket science, it is the only way forward, and the reason why I am a keen supporter of Work Wise UK and am signing the Concordat today.”

Work Wise UK, a not-for-profit initiative, is in the second of a five year programme to promote the wider adoption of smarter working practices, such as flexible working including compressed working hours and nine day fortnights, working from home, mobile and remote working.

Other signatories include the CBI, TUC, British Chambers of Commerce, BT and Transport for London.