The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted businesses across the world and forced many to re-evaluate their working arrangements. The shift away from a traditional 9 to 5 office job in favour of a more flexible approach had been proceeding at a snail’s pace before Covid. The pandemic accelerated those changes and forced the hands of numerous businesses.
A robust communications infrastructure is essential for any business that wants to enable their workers to operate just as effectively from home as they do in the office. Broadgate Voice provides unified cloud-based communications services to businesses, making it easier than ever for them to institute flexible working arrangements.
Remote Working at Schroders
The fund manager Schroders is one of many businesses that has had to embrace remote working during the pandemic. As per a memo sent out to staff in the last week, Schroders has decided to make these temporary measures permanent.
According to Emma Holden, head of Schroders’ human resources, the business has been practicing flexible working arrangements since long before the current pandemic. These past practices meant that rolling out flexible working arrangements across the company was relatively simple. In the last few months, “we have made 20 years’ progress in attitudes toward flexible working, and we are going to continue with this momentum,” said Holden.
The Benefits of Flexible Working to Businesses
It’s easy to understand why flexible working arrangements appeal to workers. Employees with the option of flexible working have a much higher degree of control over their schedules and workloads. But working from home isn’t just a boon to workers. There are several benefits to businesses as well.
The most significant benefit is the boost in productivity. Lots of businesses resisted work from home arrangements because they didn’t trust their workers to be productive without oversight. However, these fears appear to have been unfounded.
Not only are remote workers proving to be just as effective, if not more so, but many workers are reporting an improvement in their overall wellbeing.
Broadgate Voice’s VoIP Packages are an Ideal Solution for Small Businesses
Any business that wants to provide flexible working arrangements needs to have the appropriate infrastructure in place. The most critical component of this infrastructure is a reliable communications system. For the most part, it doesn’t matter how physically far apart your employees are. If you have the right communication system in place, your team can talk to each other and exchange data as if they were in the same room.
Our VoIP phone system for small businesses is a fantastic example of the kind of system that companies need. By embracing a VoIP solution, companies can save themselves a lot of money on the cost of business calls. It doesn’t matter whether you are calling someone 5 miles away or on the other side of the world, it’s all the same to a VoIP system.
Broadgate Voice’s VoIP services are also scalable. This scalability means that you can always add new lines if you need them, and you only need to pay for the services that you will use.
We expect many businesses from a variety of industries to follow in Schroder’s footsteps and make their flexible working arrangements permanent. This is good news for workers and companies like ours. Effective working from home requires robust communications. Our VoIP packages for small businesses are the ideal solution.
