With an estimated 2.5 million people now working remotely, Newcastle based Croft Technology is urging more businesses to investigate the major benefits of remote working and to introduce efficient and flexible communication tools for employees. Remote working has many benefits including a reduction in fixed operating costs, a reduction in lost time and stress as a result of commuting and reduced carbon emissions.
There are also a number of financial provisions in place, whereby employees can receive tax relief for remote workers for computing, telecommunication links and business travel costs. However, if managed incorrectly working remotely can result in a loss of face to face collaboration between colleagues, unreliable network access to important information and work and employee isolation.
Croft Technology specialises in ‘unified communications’, a virtual working environment allowing employees remote access to a range of services including company networks, email, file servers and additional applications. Recently these services have evolved to offer advanced capabilities and additional ‘real time’ solutions including instant messaging, status indicators, IP telephony, video and voice and web conferencing.
These solutions ensure that staff are able to see the status of other employees and are able to engage visually and verbally with colleagues, wherever they are working. Croft has a wealth of experience in ensuring that systems of this type are deployed for maximum business benefit. The organisation also offers consultancy, support and training to ensure that the communication tools are used to their full potential.
Peter Macdonald, Technology Director at Croft, explained: “It is vital that businesses evolve to offer the significant and growing percentage of remote workers in the UK effective network access and collaboration tools.” “The introduction of remote working via unified services will have a great impact on businesses throughout the north east allowing us to take a positive advantage of this business and social trend.
As more and more people work remotely, be it from home, another office or even another city or country, it is important that the communication links remain. “In addition to the access of networks and files, a key benefit of this technology is the ability to use it as a group collaboration tool, to ‘see’ individuals, view their status and even to develop employee relations.”
