When a team member says they are going to be “working from home tomorrow” it creates all sorts of distorted notions. People working in their pyjamas. Long lunches. A disconnected, often dysfunctional team culture. Too many people still believe you need to be sitting in an office from 9-5 to get things done. The concept of remote working has been around since the 1970s. With the current state of technology, the idea of a remote workforce has never been more relevant.
Access to internet = ability to work
Nowadays, our ability to get the job done is no longer restricted to the office. For most of us, all we need to do our work is a laptop, smartphone and a decent broadband connection. This gives us the freedom to work wherever we want – from home, local coffee spot, or even whilst travelling. A workplace that supports remote working can deliver real benefits to an organisation’s productivity, communication, staff well-being, collaboration and profitability. Research has shown that the Millennial workforce not only expects remote access to their job but consider it one of the key drivers when choosing an employer.*
Further benefits of remote working are both proven and well documented. It can:
- Improve productivity and employee satisfaction
- Eliminate the necessity for larger office space
- Reduce costs
- Reduce commuting time
- Improve quality of work life and morale
Attract quality employees
For many organisations, a remote workforce is viewed as a bonus – something that can be given to office-based employees under special circumstances. This attitude lags behind the technology available to us, it indicates a company that is stubbornly clinging to old ways of working – maybe good for the ageing talent pool, but not so good for the new.
If you don’t offer a remote work option, it’s likely others will. If you continue to postpone making a decision, your prospective talent pool will simply decide for themselves.
Across the board, employees are telling us that they value benefits and flexibility more than anything else. Freedom and flexibility are important for younger workers, they soon will make up the largest workforce demographic.
Many employees from students to entrepreneurs already take the initiative to work remotely on their own accord. Because they can.
So what does that mean for my office?
The shift towards remote working won’t necessarily mean the end of the office. Some jobs will always benefit from face-to-face communication, and some people will always prefer to be around their colleagues.
In many cases, a mixture of remote and office-based work can provide the best of both worlds – remote working for times when you need to put your head down and concentrate; office-based working for more communicative, collaborative or customer-facing work.
The technology we supply at C2 Communications – available to organisations today – provides for flexibility in both hours and times worked. For distributed teams like call centres, it means that staff members can simply log in and go – the applications of this are enormous and the business benefits, clear.
Companies need to embrace remote working because one thing is apparent: in the future of work, the idea of being tied to an office desk 40 hours a week will no longer be acceptable or reasonable. And sitting in an office is no longer the only way to create an effective team and business model.
How can 3CX help facilitate this?
We encourage companies to support team members working from home, remotely and at different locations in the office creating a ‘flexible work’ environment. 3CX offers the tech tools to allow this to happen and creates a shift in culture to support it.
Implementing 3CX and its desktop and mobile softphone options across your company means remote team members can:
- Hold face to face team meetings
- Collaborate and share ideas on the go
- Share documents and collaborate in real time
- Send long messages and have conversations.
If you haven’t done so already, reach out to one of the C2 Communications team to get a better understanding of how remote working and 3CX softphones can work for you.
* Hyphen Employment Research – February ’19, https://gethyphen.com/
