How a VoIP phone service can help you offer your staff flexible working hours

Flexi-work, telecommute, remote working. Whatever name you give it, the demand for flexible working hours is only growing. While some jobs are not conducive to flexible working, quite a few lend themselves to these work conditions. Yet, many businesses are wary of allowing employees to work from home or anywhere outside the office.

Some owners and managers may fear that flexible working would spell disaster for their business. Some may be afraid that employees will slack off and not be as productive away from their desks. Sometimes, businesses are curious and have questions about remote working:

The reality is far different. In many cases, all you need is a VoIP phone service. No, seriously! Each organization is different and so are their needs. But many roles only need a phone for the worker to do their jobs. A VoIP phone service can improve connectivity for small businesses in more ways than one.

Benefits of Flexible Working

Offering your employees flexible or remote working is more than a simple perk. It benefits your business in many ways:

How can a simple VoIP phone service offer so many benefits? Read on to see how a VoIP phone service can enable remote working and other benefits for your business.

Why Flexible Work?

Let’s understand why employees want flexible remote working. Workers are not robots, they have lives outside the office. Many employees balance working full-time with taking care of kids, elderly parents, commuting, etc.

Commuting to and from work takes up many hours a week for most people. Who wouldn’t want to save that time for working or finishing personal chores? Meanwhile, an employee who is worried about personal concerns is neither productive nor happy.

Similarly, an employee might have to move far away to take care of elderly parents. Without flexible work, it would mean quitting their jobs. But if you offer remote working, they can still contribute and manage other responsibilities.

A VoIP phone service allows you to offer flexible working

A hosted VoIP phone service doesn’t need expensive equipment or software licenses. Your vender will deliver all the enterprise features you need over the cloud. This means the location doesn’t matter anymore. Your employees can work from any location – home, coffee shop, or even the hospital. They don’t even need a traditional phone to handle calls! Simply download the softphone app on the device of your choice and off you go.

Research has shown that a happy workforce is a productive one. Even if your employees are not already asking for flexible work, offering it as an option can only boost morale. Not all your workers can do their jobs remotely. But they may be able to use it for emergencies such as a medical appointment in the middle of the day.

A VoIP phone service allows you to monitor staff working remotely

Quite a few employers worry that employees will slack off at home. That they will lounge around in their pajamas and not actually work. It is a legitimate concern but an unfounded one. In point of fact, businesses that enable remote working find that many employees are more productive when they don’t have to deal with rush-hour traffic, nosy colleagues or a noisy work environment.

Besides, allowing flexible working does not mean you lose the ability to monitor your staff. A VoIP service allows you to collect call records and analyze call log data. You can easily determine if someone is not putting in 100% after remote working. You might find that some people prefer coming into the office while others like the flexibility.

A VoIP phone service broadens your talent pool

Without the ability to offer flexible working, you are limited to recruiting talented people in a specific geographic area. After all, no one wants to move across multiple states for a job or commute for hours every day.

With VoIP phone service in place, you can recruit exceptional employees from anywhere in the world. They can work from their home and your business can benefit from their skills.

This is a valuable book to offer employees who might otherwise leave the company as well. A talented worker may leave for a competitor who offers flexible work when you don’t. Or they might have personal reasons for having to move away from the office. In many such situations, offering the ability to work from home means that you can retain top talent.

Offering flexible working conditions – even if only on occasion – can enable you to compete effectively with bigger players. A multinational corporation can recruit from a broader pool than a small business. Thanks to VoIP, you can enjoy similar benefits by offering remote working.

A VoIP phone service can help you save money and cut carbon emissions

Remote working does not mean that employees cannot attend meetings. In fact, regular meetings allow at-home workers to connect with their team and stay in touch. But these sessions don’t have to be in person.

With VoIP phone service, you can have virtual meetings with team members scattered across the world. No one has to travel anywhere which translates to less wasted time. Additionally, you can save on travel and hotel expenses. You can also organize webinars and learning sessions virtually.

By cutting down on commuting and meeting time, you can reduce the carbon footprint of your business. Enterprises are learning that customers are now eco-conscious. A company that tries to reduce its environmental impact will resonate with clients. Offering flexible working is actually good for business!

A VoIP phone service can help you recover from a crisis

A crisis doesn’t always have to be a natural disaster. Of course, weather conditions can and do impact your business. A fire or a snowstorm can easily destroy the office or make it impossible for employees to work. You need to be able to recover from such a crisis as soon as possible. At the same time, you do not want to disrupt service to clients.

The same holds true for a man-made crisis as well. Maybe all the computers are infected with malware and have to be shut down. Or a supplier failed to deliver on a contract impacting your clients. A power outage can also disrupt your work. In such circumstances, you need the ability to get back on your feet as soon as humanly possible.

VoIP phone service and remote working enable you to do exactly that. You don’t have to come into the office to do their work. They can easily go home and continue working with their phones and laptops. If you would rather have all your teams together, you can relocate to a different working space temporarily. Your phones will still work and customers can reach the business at this crucial time.

Improve collaboration and teamwork

Many employers worry that allowing remote working will make it difficult for things to work together. Ironically, flexible working can help teams function better. That’s because the individual team members are happier and more productive.

You can also improve collaboration by cutting down on time wasted in weekly meetings. If all you need is to deliver a status update to the entire team, a quick virtual conference will do the job just as well. Employees don’t have to disrupt their work schedules to attend such meetings.

If your team is working in different countries, virtual meetings can bridge the gap between distances. It enables teams to meet more often than they otherwise would. A virtual face to face meeting can be more effective in bridging culture gaps than long emails. It can also close the communication gap.
With remote working, you can offer flexible business hours to clients as well. Customers can contact your office at any time of day because you have staff in multiple time zones manning the phones. This is the sort of flexibility large companies have always enjoyed. Now VoIP brings them to smaller businesses as well.

As you can see, remote working is not just good for workers. It’s good business sense as well! Sign up for a free 30-day trial with VoIPstudio today and bring flexibility to your office.