For the small business, there are additional benefits toostaff are more productive, and happier, enabling firms to keep their headcounts and their recruitment costs to a minimum. It can also provide competitive advantage, especially when small businesses want to attract new staff but dont have the budget to offer huge salaries.
While company managers have known about the benefits for a long time, many have done little about it, sceptical of whether they could trust their employees to work to full capacity without supervision, or concerned about the additional expenses teleworking policies might incur as staff start charging their home phone bills to the business.
Yet this is now changing. When communications provider Inter-Tel researched the use of remote working solutions among small-and-medium-sized UK businesses in April this year, it found that 28% more companies claimed to have introduced flexible working practices than a year ago.
The UK network of Business Links confirms that it too has seen a growing interest in remote working solutions from small businesses seeking its advice, and claims that as many as 60-70% of the businesses that come through its doors now offer some form of remote working support to their workforces.
Technology advances, including the widespread availability of broadband, are making the introduction of remote working a piece of cake.
If systems are set up properly, staff can have access to all the resources they have in the office wherever they have an internet connection, says Andy Poulton, e-business advisor at Business Link for Berkshire and Wiltshire. There are some very exciting developments which have enabled this.
One is the availability of broadband everywhere, which now covers almost all of the country . This is the enabler, Poulton says.
Yet while broadband has come down in price too, those service providers targeting the business market warn against consumer services masquerading as business-friendly broadband.
Broadband is available for as little as ￡15 a month, but many businesses fail to appreciate the hidden costs of such a service, says Neil Stephenson, sales and marketing director at Onyx Internet, an internet service provider based in the north-east of England. Providers offering broadband for rock-bottom prices are notorious for poor service, with regular breakdowns and heavily congested networks. It is always advisable for businesses to look beyond the price tag and look for a business-only provider that can offer more reliability, with good support. Such services dont cost too muchquality services can be found for upwards of ￡30 a month.
The benefits of broadband to the occasional home worker are that they can access email in real time, and take full advantage of services such as internet-based backup or even internet-based phone services.
Internet-based telecoms, or VoIP to give it its technical title, is an interesting tool to any business supporting remote working. Not necessarily because of the promise of free or reduced price phone calls , but because of the sophisticated voice services that can be exploited by the remote workerfacilities such as voicemail and call forwarding, which provide a continuity of the company image for customers and business partners.
By law, companies must consider seriously requests to work flexibly made by a parent with a child under the age of six, or a disabled child under 18. It was the need to accommodate employees with young children that motivated accountancy firm Wright Vigar to begin promoting teleworking recently. The company, which needed to upgrade its IT infrastructure to provide connectivity with a new, second office, decided to introduce support for remote working at the same time.
Marketing director Jack OHern explains that the company has a relatively young workforce, many of whom are parents: One of the triggers was when one of our tax managers returned from maternity leave. She was intending to work part time, but could only manage one day a week in the office due to childcare. By offering her the ability to work from home, we have doubled her capacitynow she works a day a week from home, and a day in the office. This is great for her, and for us as we retain someone highly qualified.
For Wright Vigar, which has now equipped all of its fee-earners to be able to work at maximum productivity when away from the offices , this strategy is not just about saving on commute time or cutting them loose from the office, but enabling them to work more flexible hours that fit around their home life.
OHern says: Although most of our work is client-based and must fit around this, we cant see any reason why a parent cant be on hand to deal with something important at home, if they have the ability to complete a project later in the day.
Supporting this new way of working came with a price, though. Although the firm was updating its systems anyway, the company spent 10-15% more per user to equip them with a laptop rather than a PC, and about the same to upgrade to a server that would enable remote staff to connect to the company networks and access all their usual resources.
Although Wright Vigar hasnt yet quantified the business benefits, it claims that, in addition to being able to retain key staff with young families, it is able to save fee-earners a substantial amount of dead time in their working days.
That staff can do this without needing a fixed telephone line provides even more efficiency savings. With Wi-Fi popping up all over the place, even on trains, our fee-earners can be productive as they travel, and between meetings, instead of having to kill time at the shops, he adds.
The company will also be able to avoid the expense of having to relocate staff to temporary offices for several weeks when it begins disruptive office renovations soon.
Financial recruitment specialist Lynne Hargreaves knows exactly how much her firm has saved by adopting a teleworking strategy, which has involved handing her companys data management over to a remote hosting company, Datanet, so it can be accessible by all the companys consultants over broadband internet connections.
It has enabled the company to dispense with its business premises altogether, following the realisation that it just didnt need them any more. The main motivation behind adopting home working was to increase my own productivity, as a single mum to an 11-year-old, says Hargreaves. But I soon realised that, as most of our business is done on the phone, email and at off-site meetings, we didnt need our offices at all. Were now saving ￡16,000 a year on rent, plus the cost of utilities, not to mention what would have been spent on commuting.
1. What is the main topic of this passage?
A) How business managers view hi-tech.
B) Relations between employers and employees.
C) How to cut down the costs of small businesses.
D) Benefits of the practice of teleworking.
2. From the research conducted by the communications provider Inter-Tel, we learn that .
A) more employees work to full capacity at home
B) employees show a growing interest in small businesses
C) more businesses have adopted remote working solutions
D) attitudes toward IT technology have changed
3. What development has made flexible working practices possible according to Andy Poulton?
A) Reduced cost of telecommunications.
B) Improved reliability of internet service.
C) Availability of the VoIP service.
D) Access to broadband everywhere.
4. What is Neil Stephensons advice to firms contracting internet services?
A) They look for reliable business-only providers.
B) They contact providers located nearest to them.
C) They carefully examine the contract.
D) They contract the cheapest provider.
5. Internet-based telecoms facilitates remote working by __________.
A) offering sophisticated voice services
B) giving access to emailing in real time
C) helping clients discuss business at home
D) providing calls completely free of charge
6. The accountancy firm Wright Vigar promoted teleworking initially in order to __________.
A) present a positive image to prospective customers
B) support its employees with children to take care of
C) attract young people with IT expertise to work for it
D) reduce operational expenses of a second office
7. According to marketing director Jack OHern, teleworking enabled the company to __________.
A) enhance its market image
B) reduce recruitment costs
C) keep highly qualified staff
D) minimise its office space
8. Wright Vigars practice of allowing for more flexible working hours not only benefits the company but helps improve employees .
9. With fast, wireless internet connections, employees can still be __________ while traveling.
10. Single mother Lynne Hargreaves decided to work at home mainly to __________.
1-7 BCCBADB
8.home life
9.productive
10.increase her productivity
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