The current moment is the most challenging time in living memory to run a business. With the coronavirus effecting all aspects of life around the world, and reshaping the global economy, we are seeing both radical changes driven by the virus, and the sudden massive exaggeration of trends which have been imminent for a long time. The rise of home working is the most obvious of these: many jobs can be done remotely, but preferences and inertia stopped it being adopted wholesale until the current crisis.
It is clear that even after coronavirus the office as we knew it a few months ago is not coming back in the same form. In this new world many changes will be necessary, and many things that were formerly luxuries have become necessities, such as secure, cost-effective video-conferencing software. But one technology which is easily overlooked that has now definitely moved from a luxury to a necessity is Unified Communications.
What are Unified Communications?
Unified Communications products use internet services including a dedicated platform and secure server to streamline all of a business’ communications into a single place. This can include voice calls, data sharing, video calling and conference services. This can allow workers to use their office numbers while away from their desks and have a single secure way of communicating with both colleagues and clients.
Streamlining your operations by having everyone use voice, data and mobile services by Gamma for example can help get everyone on one page. It can also avoid the confusion of people sharing information over tangles of different networks, and then struggling to access information that has been sent. In the age of home working the time for Unified Communications’ widescale adoption has arrived.
Home working and Unified Communications
Homeworking has been popular with many workers, with nine out of ten people wanting the option to work from home at least one day a week after the pandemic. While a majority of people are glad to give up commuting, 35% of people asked found it made them more productive, and a third were specifically keen on having a work week divided as half in the office and half from home. This means that in the future much technology currently associated with the office will still be in use, but lines of communication will need to be able to be adapted to home use as well.
Communications technology is one thing which businesses will have to adapt to take a more involved and flexible role in than before. It is useful to have the ability to give each employee a single work number which they can use from their desk when at the office or their mobile while working from home. This can also simplify things for clients calling in to the business who will be able to be connected flawlessly over the main company network wherever the worker is in the country.
Having a virtual work number separate to their personal number while working from home can also help your employees create the level of separation that works best for them to create a healthy work / life balance. This will improve worker productivity. Being able to use a single internet-backed number for a number of services can also streamline your business structure.
