Our latest blog featured on the Work Wise Week website, as it is National Work Wise Week from 13th- 19th May, with Friday 18th May being National Work From Home Day.
The revolution of technology within business has made it possible for the way we work to completely change. The adaptation of things such as the smartphone, tablets and high speed broadband and Wi-Fi now allows you to be on the go 24/7 and choose your working patterns. You don’t have to be bound by the 9am-5pm drudgery of office working and commuting. Instead, this technology allows you to stay in touch with colleagues, suppliers and customers all around the world, whenever and wherever you are.
Work Wise Week 2012
We no longer need expensive hardware, or dedicated conference rooms, or even offices for businesses to be able to function. We have customers who use our service who don’t have offices and some who work with staff they have actually never even met in person… now that is business development if you ask me. The ability to be able to run a successful business with staff based on the merit of talent, not on geography or convenience – what a revelation for the business world and especially business owners!
The recent CBI/Harvey Nash employment trends survey 2011 supports the evidence technology is enabling a change in working. The survey found that there has been rapid development in recent years in the use of teleworking, with now 59 percent of employers using this form of flexible working, increasing from 46 percent in 2008 and only 14 percent in 2006. We too have noticed an increase in demand for our services, with 30% year on year growth. This is phenomenal and clearly cements how businesses are looking for alternative ways of working – something that we see is only set to continue, especially with the Olympics around the corner. It will be interesting to see what impact this summer has on businesses allowing flexible working to cope with the increase of people in our capital and whether as a result of this, people start to integrate remote working much more into their business ethos – it is definitely something we will be watching closely.
Our type of services allows businesses greater flexibility. Powwownow is free, easy to use and accessible 24/7 and we offer a free mobile app to schedule meetings, meaning you really can fit business in with your life, not life in with your business. We have big plans for the future within our business; we actively encourage and promote the ability for people to be able to work remotely or with flexible working. We are also working towards a fully unified communications approach; integrating web, video and audio conferencing, meaning people really won’t need to leave the home or stay stuck in the office to interact with colleagues. With broadband speeds being enhanced across the UK and Wi-Fi now being offered freely across major cities and soon to be on underground stations, long gone are the days of internet drop outs and pixelated images. High definition cameras and fantastic broadband speeds mean that people will be able to interact with each other over the web and it will be like they are in exactly the same room – Our unified communications plans aim to work towards a more flexible working Britain, spearheading our nation to a truly 21st century approach to business.