Partner Article

Making the right connections for a smarter working office

Advances in technology at work have changed everything from the way we communicate to where and how we work.

The 9-to-5 work day is now a ‘make it your own’ day with the ability to work from home, on the road or wherever and whenever your work and heart desires. Keeping up with the pace of change can be overwhelming especially when considering implementing a flexible working policy.

I am a huge advocate of smarter working as I have discussed in previous articles on building a smarter working office and evolving management’s philosophy.

I would like to share observations from my smarter working philosophy, specifically around implementing the technology that can fuel a smarter working atmosphere. In short, to be successful at smarter working you must invest in technology that moves with you, not ties you down.

Evaluate your current technology

Before purchasing any new technology to aid your flexible working initiative, I recommend taking a hard look at your current offerings. What are your employees happy with? What are they not?

Smarter decisions will be made in the future if you communicate with your employees and assess the current needs from the front line as the first step. We do this with the Leesman WorkSpace Satisfaction Survey tool that covers both physical and virtual work survey: associates can vote for what’s good, lacking and bad.

Get the right technology

Does your on-the-go salesperson have a stellar office desk with a great monitor but no company supported smartphone or tablet? Does your call centre have great social media monitoring, but no height-adjustable desks to help correct posture and ease back pain? All the best technology in the world cannot help if it is used in the wrong scenario.

Don’t spend time kitting out an office desk for an employee who sits there less than 10% a year. Mobile technology like tablets, wifi dongles, VOIP applications and Bluetooth headsets all enable a more fluid, flexible and smarter working environment. However, they need to be matched with Quality of Service networks: not just in the office, but especially on the move and at home.

Surfers need a wave; smarter workers need Service Level Guaranteed networks!

Embrace technology that aids collaboration

Simply put - technology that helps people collaborate, no matter their location, betters the company and employee performance. We saw great success in replacing all our desk phones with soft phones making laptops and smartphones the de facto means of voice communications.

Microsoft Lync and Cisco Jabber unified communication applications helped to show presence of all team members no matter their location. Even our headsets now incorporate contextual intelligence to share people’s location and availability. High-accuracy presence is central: indicating to what extent teams are on-line and able/willing to engage together.

Access to our systems can be provided remotely, which means some staff regularly work from home but this doesn’t slow our company down one bit. We made it a point to address communication requirements for a dispersed workforce that centres on identity and presence, so that everyone feels “checked in”.

Enhance the acoustic experience

Not all environments are made for a phone call or private discussions.

Multi-device Bluetooth headsets can convert a once stationary phone call into a private conversation with the ability to get up and move to a new private location with a push of a button. Portable speakerphones can help create a spontaneous brainstorm session with colleagues in the office just as quickly as saying “hello.”

Investing in technology with HD Voice to provide crystal clear reception for both sides enhances the communication experience and helps dilute any tech frustrations due to poor audio. Lastly, we made sure we had fully optimized PCs, network bandwidth and voice quality of service, especially over Wi-Fi for all our employees.

Invest in training

It is all well and good to give your employees new technology support, but if they are not equipped to get the most out of the service or product, all is wasted. If you invest in time to train your employees on the new technology, your efficiencies will only increase and your employees will be more content. That’s a win-win situation.

Technology is the backbone of a successful flexible working environment. Investing the time and resources to provide the right tech will boost productivity and motivation, meeting the ultimate goal – happy, healthy employees.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Plantronics .