Home working allows employees to have a "more rounded lifestyle", BT Business has said this week.

According to research conducted by the communications solutions provider, the biggest pull that attracts people to set up a business from home is the desire to have more control over their working life.

Mick Hegarty from BT Business said: "[Home working] often starts with somebody wanting to have more control over their lives and be their own boss."

BT Business' survey, which was conducted ahead of its Year of the Home Worker 2008, found that that 56 per cent of people who choose to work from home, started off to "get a better work-life balance".

Mick added that for people who are ambitious and who want to have business careers but do their own way, homeworking allows them to achieve other things as well as their career.

However, new research carried out by Enterprise Nation, undertaken as part of the Year of the Home Worker initiative, found that nearly half of the UK's two million home-based business owners are struggling to negotiate the work-life balance they had originally hoped for.

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