In today's hyper-connected world, the ability to work from home is more of a reality than ever before, and can offer some wonderful benefits for you and your colleagues. Being able to roll out of bed in the morning and head straight for your desk, or even choose to work outside of regular office hours, can improve worker productivity and morale, and even cut down on your ongoing costs.
To achieve the tricky task of wrangling workers across multiple locations, your small business is going to require a sophisticated and unified communications system, one that will offer a consistent interface and experience no matter where you are. With that in place, you can start to see some of the benefits of working from home.
Achieve your dream lifestyle
While more and more Australians desire to live in the CBDs of our state capitals, there are still a lot of people happy to escape the hustle and bustle of modern city living. Where metropolitan dwelling was once the only way to benefit from a lot of conveniences and amenities, with the advent of the digital age and increasing internet evolution, nowadays almost anything you can find in the city is available to regional residents.
A 2013 report from researchers McCrindle estimates that, by 2020, the Australian government is aiming for 12 per cent of all public servants to be working remotely. With the continuing rollout of the National Broadband Network, including the satellite Sky Muster service, high-speed internet is available and affordable for more rural communities than ever before.
This means technologies such as cloud-based business phone systems are finally able to deliver the full office experience almost anywhere in the country.
Cloud-based business phone systems are finally able to deliver the full office experience.
Save money on office rent
One of the biggest expenses for many businesses comes in the form of office space leasing. Depending on the size of your company, you could potentially be paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in rent, so naturally any savings in that area are a cause for celebration.
By allowing some or all of your workforce to do their job remotely, you may quickly find you have office space surplus to your requirements, allowing you to relocate to smaller premises, or even do away with the office altogether. Working from home can be a joyous experience, and as long as you have an effective communications system available, there's very little stopping you from joining your workers on the home office bandwagon.
It may not be a perfect fit for all businesses, but if you're able to pull it off, a remote workforce can be a terrific, money-saving asset. Perhaps it's time you looked at your own office phone systems.