Everyone has a mobile phone these days. In fact, smartphones are now so ubiquitous that there’s a good chance you’ve not used your home landline in a long time.
Things may be a little different if you have a business premises, but here are some reasons why we think you should hang on to your landline.
Let’s not kid ourselves, Apple phone chargers are flimsy and expensive – I’ve not had one iPhone that doesn’t need a new charger after six months – but buying a fake to save a few pounds could prove costly.
Our need to stay connected at all times means, telephones have never been more popular – 95% of UK households now own a mobile phone, compared with just 16% back in 1997, according to figures from Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data.
But if most of us carry a mobile around with us and the analogue phone system is due to be switched off by 2025, where does that leave the good, old landline?
Business insurance costs are on the rise. Insurance giant Aon has reported that the six-week period from the start of April to the middle of May saw insurance premiums increased by 27% from the same time last year, and this is largely as a result of an increasing number of ransomware cyberattacks.
This recent spike in ransomware activity is putting pressure on businesses to improve cyber defences as a matter of urgency. Is your business protected?
More of us are working from home than ever before. But as we slowly start getting back to normal after the pandemic, many of us will be returning to offices up and down the country, even if only on a part-time basis.
The pandemic has also seen a lot of job losses. This has, in turn, seen a growing number of people starting their own business.If you’ve started up on your own, you’ll be conscious of the need to keep overheads low – and working from home can work out a lot cheaper than renting out office space.
And having employees is no reason to rent out separate office space, you can simply kit them out with a laptop and a smartphone and some other essential tools for remote working and they’ll be able to do their job just as well wherever they are.
If you need to collaborate on anything you could arrange to meet up at your home office, a coffee shop or conduct a meeting via conference call.
There comes a point, however, when you outgrow your home office – the trouble is though, you may not be aware or willing to accept you have.
So here are five telltale signs you’ve outgrown your home office…
The benefits of flexible working are well documented – not least in these pages – it gives employees more control over their working lives, allowing for a better work/life balance, something that is becoming increasingly important in the UK where almost two thirds of families rely on dual incomes.
It also helps to engender a reciprocated sense of trust between employers and employees and there’s also the beneficial effect on the working environment that shouldn’t be overlooked – a culture of flexible working culture is gaining traction with many UK employers.
This makes the decisions companies such as Yahoo and HP have made to restrict or even cut out flexible working completely seem regressive a possibly detrimental to staff morale and productivity.
So if the benefits are well documented, why is it that some companies – including big ones such as Yahoo and HP – don’t offer employees the option to work from home?
Working from home is great for productivity, it promotes a better work/life balance, and can it can even be a deal-breaker when it comes to hiring the best talent, but it’s also a great opportunity to get a load of other things done on company time – if we’re all completely honest about it, when we work from home we don’t spend every minute of our working day doing things for the business.
But does that necessarily mean we’re less productive when working from home? One in four bosses seem to think so, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The world of business is changing – rapid advances in technology mean the global community is ever-expanding and the days of working the nine-to-five are a fading memory – especially now it looks like more people than ever will need to work from home for at least part of the working week.
So why is it some conference call providers only offer customer support during traditional business hours?
Although we’re slowly but surely creeping out of lockdown, it seems that some restrictions and changes to how we do things will be hanging around longer than others.
Many office-based workplaces are adopting new work from home policies that will see staff working remotely for at least part of the working week. And the winter months could even see a drive to have everyone working from home again, wherever possible, in a bid to keep virus infection rates down.
We could also see a return to face masks.
Although many of us have had to work from home over the last 12 months or so, telecommuting isn’t for everyone though.
But telecommuting can be beneficial for both employees and employers. While employees get the benefit of flexible working and the improved work/life balance that brings, employers get a more motivated and productive workforce, with staff who are happier to work longer hours when the daily commute is taken out of the equation.
Many businesses are moving to a remote-first policy, which means more of us than ever will be working from home for the foreseeable future. Here are five top tips to make sure that, as an employer, you get the most of telecommuting.