There has been a good deal of debate over the advantages and disadvantages of teleworking recently, especially in response to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s leaked memo enacting a new company policy against teleworking. Google CFO Patrick Pichette also recently revealed that the company doesn’t view teleworking favorably either in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. Google believes that its employees need to see each other in an office environment in order to share new and innovative ideas.
In a recent article for ZDNet, contributor Spandas Lui noted that even with these big names taking a stand against teleworking, others think teleworking should be embraced because it provides many advantages to both employees and the business.
Enabling Teleworking with Virtual Office Phone Systems
“All companies need to consider all of their employees. Frankly, the more we can accommodate for people’s lifestyles, the better, and if we can provide them with tools to work effectively wherever they are, we will,” Gordon Graylish, Intel’s general manager of enterprise solutions, told ZDNet. He later added, “We live in a world that is moving very quickly, and we need to enable people to operate in the most comfortable and effective fashion. We expect people to get their jobs done, not that they need to be at a particular place, or do it at a particular time. When you’re looking at global organizations, finding ways to connect people so there is a sense of community among those people is really important.”
Graylish noted that roughly 85 percent of Intel’s staff works from a mobile device such as a notebook or tablet. The company has a BYOD policy and issued Windows 8 touch devices to many employees to provide them with the best technology for enabling productivity regardless of location.
Teleworking week
The Mobile Work Exchange organization is promoting mobility and teleworking values this week for Telework Week 2013. The organization indicated the more than 110,000 people who don’t usually telecommute pledged to do so from March 4 through 8, GCN reported. In a report from last year, global market intelligence provider International Data Corporation (IDC) estimated that by 2015, roughly 37.2 percent of the total global workforce – 1.3 billion people – will be made up of mobile workers.
OfficeZilla recently detailed its key strategies for successful teleworking in part as a response to Yahoo’s recent decision and in part because of National Telework Week. The source cited a new study from Stanford, which found that when working from home, call center employees increased their work performance by 13 percent. Participants in the study also reported “improved work satisfaction and experienced less turnover.”
With all of the recent support for teleworking, focus shifts to the technology choices that can influence the level of success a business has with a teleworking policy. AccessDirect’s virtual office phone technology solutions are attractive options for setting employees up with the necessary communication and collaboration tools. With a hosted PBX phone system, the virtual workforce is not only provided with advanced features and the appropriate technology to boost their productivity, but employers are able to better manage a virtual workforce.
