Partner Article

Better ways of working: can changing the way you work benefit your bottom line?

With half a million small businesses launched in 2012 alone, it’s clear that the entrepreneurial spirit has well and truly taken hold across the UK.

Entrepreneurial thinking challenges the status quo. This challenger mentality, coupled with a new generation of workers who are rejecting traditional career paths and traditional ways of working, has created an opportunity for businesses to embrace changing work practices and steal a march on the competition.

Recently, the Business Secretary Vince Cable said “These are difficult times but I think there are some positive signals, reasons for being confident. We’re getting a rate of startups and new companies more than we’ve ever had…There’s an enormous enthusiasm from people wanting to be successful in business.”

Despite this enthusiasm, general economic conditions remain tough with little or no growth expected for the rest of the year. As a result, many firms, and small businesses in particular, are looking for ways to stay ahead of their competitors, reduce overheads, increase turnover, and generally remain lean and agile at a time of uncertainty.

Good business practice hasn’t changed. Keeping an eye on cash flow and profitability will always be key. But today, forward-thinking companies are looking for new ways to bring about business success. Customer service, talent, and physical infrastructure are universal to most businesses, and as a result, a great place to start.

Is your customer really king?

Ovum/Datamonitor found that the average cost of poor customer service to the British economy is around £15 billion. Vodafone’s own research found that 85% of customers will avoid a company with whom they have previously had a bad experience. So, good customer service should be a priority in any business, especially during a recession when retaining customers is crucial.

Technology is already empowering businesses to build a customer service ethos into employees’ daily work, in a way that wasn’t previously possible. In addition to a plethora of customer communications platforms like phone, email, social media, and online forums there remains an important focus on real people communicating with real people.

By empowering staff to work from anywhere, rather than in a traditional office setting, they can respond quickly and efficiently to customer queries without having to return to their office. Not only does this ‘anywhere working’ approach increase efficiency but it creates the opportunity for employees to be more responsive to those stakeholders who are most important to any business. And we have found the not responding could cost a business up to £30,000.

So, businesses that get it right have and a truly flexible workforce can not only improve customer service, but dramatically boost employee productivity and contribute to overall efficiency.

Tapping in to talent

It might be a cliché, but further Vodafone research has shown that in today’s hyper-connected world work-life balance and job satisfaction are still very important to employees. Generations X and Y expect instant answers as customers, but equally expect a work environment to provide them with the ability to stay connected and react quickly themselves. They are unwittingly reshaping the workplace in their own image, and in line with their own expectations.

The current generation of bright, young workers will actively seek out companies that offer flexible working, and avoid those that don’t. At a time when the UK labour market is stagnant and talent is at a premium, the most successful firms are allowing workers the flexibility and freedom to work in a way that suits them best, with a focus on results not presenteeism, and in return they are managing to attract the best talent, at the expense of their larger competitors.

And it’s not just forward-thinking start-ups that are adopting a more flexible approach. Another Vodafone study of UK organisations of all sizes found that managers put improved employee satisfaction and retention at the top of the list of perceived benefits of flexible working. And half of all managers surveyed felt that offering flexible working options would make them a more attractive prospect as a potential employer.

Eighty-five per cent of managers believed that employees now expect greater flexibility from their employer - and they appeared to understand the positive impact of remote working on organisational performance and the bottom line.

Such practices are felt to create a more productive organisation (57 per cent cited this as top five benefit). In addition to attracting and retaining top talent, by enabling greater agility and responsiveness and cutting decision times, flexible working can help smaller companies ‘punch above their weight’.

How important are bricks and mortar?

Taking an objective look at the property requirements of a business of any size is always a good idea, particularly if you are seeing shifting patterns in working behavior.

Recent research carried out by Vodafone and YouGov found that British businesses could potentially save around £34 billion a year by getting rid of unnecessary desk space. With staff often out of the office, working from home, meeting customers or at external meetings, empty desks still cost money. By moving away from traditional fixed desks, computers and desks and equipping staff with mobile technology, companies need only rent the amount of office space required at any given time.

Some smaller companies are taking this attitude to flexibility one step further – by abandoning office space altogether. For example, Letco, a lettings agency based in Southampton, has been able to expand throughout the South coast, without the cost of taking on more expensive office space.

They use local landline numbers which redirect their employees’ mobile phones, giving the appearance of a physical presence in the local area. As a result, the company has been able to expand geographically and attract new customers, without incurring the property overheads that larger competitors have to bear.

It’s clear that there are benefits to challenging the status quo when it comes to working practices at every level of a company, no matter how big or small. Adopting flexible working practices doesn’t need to mean part-time workers and a ‘working from home’ culture. At its best, it means attracting top talent, minimising physical infrastructure requirements and creating an environment that is attractive to the talented leaders of tomorrow.

Taking the opportunity to look at your business through a different lens, just might help identify new opportunities that have been there all along.

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