Why have things changed now?
Ever since I can remember the paperless office has been the mantra of every new piece of technology. Word processing was supposed to deliver but in fact paper consumption increased as people printed out their copy to check and read.
The millennials are now moving into positions of power in corporations. This group has only known a connected world and use SMS and email extensively. PC programs are now in the cloud and are accessed by a browser interface. There is no need to have a desktop PC any more to run your software. You simply access via a browser from a mobile device anywhere. Corporate offices are becoming open plan and hot desking is more common where no one has a dedicated desk. Mobile devices have replaced the desk phone. Corporate communication systems are moving to the cloud.
Employees can now carry out their duties effectively from anywhere. Be that from home, at the beach or in a cafe with Wi-Fi. They can select the environment that is most conducive to the task at hand.
I put the concept to the test on a recent two month spell in Silicon Valley. I went armed with my tablet with a docking station, a portable 13 inch monitor and a blue tooth keyboard/mouse. I survived the two months and at no time did I feel I was disadvantaged or unable to work as effectively as I did in a fully equipped office. My monitor, keyboard and docking station were set up in my hotel room and functioned as my PC. The tablet was used when out and about and when working from Coupa Cafe a blue tooth keyboard turned my tablet into a Linux laptop. Conference calls with staff located all around the world were conducted from the app on the tablet. These were both audio and video calls. Documents were exchanged and discussed in real time during the calls.
Based on my experiences my staff are now encouraged to work from where ever they feel more productive. Soon I will have to reduce the size of head office! Productivity has increased and staff morale and enthusiasm are at new highs.
There is no reason not to embrace teleworking.
Back to Blog