Working from home has been a reality for a lot of people in the last few years with some flexibility around working away from the office.
KAT Communications are seen as experts in the field of flexible and remote working. BBC Radio Sheffield use them as the ‘go to’ people whenever there is a a discussion about flexible or remote working.
From web and video conference calling such as the well talked about Zoom to instant messaging and file sharing solutions such as Microsoft Teams, there’s a wealth of communication and technology tools to help small business owners manage a flexible and remote workforce. We are living in strange times at the moment and maybe Remote working will become the new norm.
More and more businesses are finding that working flexibly can help reduce business costs without compromising on their efficiency, quality of service, or professional image, and for businesses start-ups this can give them a real competitive edge during the critical first couple of years of operation.
This remote working philosophy has aided businesses during the Coranavirus pandemic and in many cases the use of this technology has kept companies afloat.
The key to this operational freedom lies in the wealth of communications and technology tools at their disposal, which range from web and video conference calling, to online document sharing services and instant messaging.
These have enabled many businesses to restructure their working practices by introducing flexible and remote working policies, reduce their overheads by equipping employees to work from home or other remote locations, and still make an impact on their clients and business partners as a cohesive, collaborative, productive, highly efficient business unit.
Employees as well as employers benefit, with recent figures showing that the average person spends over £135,000 in a lifetime commuting to work and a third of employees are stressed going into work at least once a week because of their commute now is the time to look at the health and wellbeing of your staff.
Remote working can improve health and wellbeing and employers will benefit from productive and happy staff.
Video conferencing has always been marmite! Some people love the idea, some people absolutely hate it. However during the recent coronavirus pandemic this is one of the technologies pushed on employees to be able to remote work and guess what most like it!
There have always been huge benefits from video conferencing allowing people working in different locations to ‘meet up’ without incurring the cost of travel and the many hours of unproductive travelling to and from meetings. There are a huge number of video conferencing solutions, (its included in Microsoft Teams) or there are free or chargeable versions of products like Zoom and Webex.
Ensure you speak with your internal IT team re security around products like Video Conferencing. The surge in uptake of these services has also seen an increase in online security breaches.
This can be extremely useful application for allowing participants in a video conference to simultaneously see documents, spreadsheets, presentations or other files, which would otherwise have to be emailed and downloaded in advance of the conference.
Teams that work remotely will need some way of accessing key documents and other files that are central to the work at hand. There are a variety of web-based file sharing solutions. We offer a range of solutions from very low cost, right up to more sophisticated options, which allow easy file access for multiple users, with very high levels of security built in.
Described as the text version of a phone call, instant messaging such as Whatsapp (which now has a business version) and Microsoft Teams is a popular tool with businesses that deploy remote teams and homeworkers, enhancing online collaboration, and in some cases, used in conjunction with web and video conferencing platforms to invite colleagues to join and share very cost effectively. For more information go to our Cloud Based Solutions Page.
With a cloud based phone system (sometimes referred to as a VoIP system) there is no ‘box’ attached to your wall in the office, and the system doesn’t require any plug ins as all upgrades are done automatically, meaning there is no business downtime required to keep the system up to date.
It helps businesses to implement flexible and remote working , as employees can have their desk phone at home and once plugged into their broadband router the phone will operate as though it is still in the office (keeping all internal calls free and still displaying the main office number on outbound calls).
More and more remote workers are also losing their desk phone altogether and having a deskphone app on their mobile meaning their desk phone and direct dial goes where they go – but still all linked to the office. These ‘softphones’ have been particularly useful for companies and their employees when they were forced to work from home during the Covid-19 Pandemic. For more information go to our Hosted Phone System Page.
