Go BackSix tips for effective flexible working
In April 2003, the UK Government introduced an employment law that gave parents of children under 6, or parents of disabled children under 18, the right to request a flexible working arrangement. Employers now have a statutory duty to consider such applications seriously. The new law has boosted the flexible working industry, leading to a sharp rise in organisations implementing flexible working and home working.
There are many reasons organisations should be considering flexible working. Flexible working can deliver:
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A better work-life balance
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Improved performance, efficiency and productivity
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A broader recruitment pool; with less absence and attrition
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Improved customer service
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Less wasted travel time
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More efficient use of office space
To get the most from investments in flexible working requires co-ordination - with departments responsible for IT, property, HR, facilities, training and internal communications needing to work together to ensure flexible working initiatives are focused and integrated.
Macfarlane offers the following six tips to organisations looking to introduce flexible working for the first time:
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Understand the basics: where staff work, what roles they perform, how individuals and teams within a department interact, how different departments interact, where people live and how they travel, when they need to be in the office, what they need to communicate and when. Understanding what tasks employees need to perform is essential in drawing conclusions about whether flexible working will work in the first place.
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Determine the scope of your flexible working project: i.e. what are you setting out to achieve? Who is involved, how will things change, will homeworking work for specific teams? How will property space be optimised? How will health and safety matters be addressed? What technologies will be deployed - and how will homeworkers be supported? What HR policies will be in place to ensure homeworkers aren't isolated? How will individual and team-based communications work? Multi-site working and homeworking aren't appropriate in every situation so it's important to carefully lay down the scope of projects from day one.
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Build the business case for flexible working: It is important that your organisation has a way of quantifying the benefits of flexible working projects - including cost reductions, productivity gains, service quality improvements, workforce scheduling advantages, employee and customer satisfaction improvements, travel cost reductions etc.
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Ensure homeworkers feel they are part of a functional team: Isolation can be a problem with geographically-dispersed teams. Ensure that communication with remote workers is regular and that homeworkers can share in team - as well as individual - successes. Setting up functional teams based on skills is also important from a management point of view to ensure calls can be answered by other team members if an individual is unavailable.
Strive for service consistency: Give remote workers access to the same systems, knowledge bases and other resources as in-house workers and ensure call quality is uniform and that service is not compromised when customers are routed to remote agents. Always attempt to route and manage calls according to a single set of business rules across your entire organisation/ contact centre operations wherever possible
Consider business continuity options: Using modern platforms such as Macfarlane CallPlus IP, organisations can embed their technology resources in the network - providing significant business continuity and disaster recovery advantages. With a single site technology installation, if that site fails (for example in the event of a terrorist act or a power failure), then your technology services will fail too. By using 'hosted' technology services, this problem can be overcome - with the reassurance of guaranteed availability, 24/7.
From a technology perspective, home workers need a PC, a phone connection and a broadband connection at the very least. Via the PC, home workers must be able to access office applications - from email to client account information, product information and other databases - just as if they were sitting in the office. Home workers also need flexible communications solutions.
With many organisations now opting to deliver phone and Internet services to homeworkers on a single Internet Protocol (IP) connection using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, a new generation of IP-based telecoms and contact centre solutions is starting to emerge that combines communications flexibility with management control.
The new CallPlus IP Contact Centre is a good example. CallPlus IP the latest evolution of Macfarlane Telesystems' technology - a contact centre system that combines 'next generation' IP functionality with Macfarlane's powerful and proven range of applications.
A key advantage of this new platform is its ability to support virtual contact centre working using home-based contact centre agents. When calls come in, CallPlus IP can route calls to any extension - regardless of whether they are inside or outside the office - at minimal cost, while enabling flexible workers to be accessible at all times. If they work from different locations at different times of the day, calls can be instantly re-routed to appropriate numbers as they move - or a single contact number provided. CallPlus also ensures homeworkers have access to similar information and technology resources wherever they are, ensuring quality standards are always consistent. Flexible workers can transfer calls to colleagues, divert calls to whoever they want, and set their phones - wherever they are and whichever handset they are using - as a simple extension of their office (and as part of a hunt group if required).
CallPlus IP truly takes contact centres into the Internet age. Local authorities and companies that are enjoying the benefits of IP infrastructure investments (such as reduced call costs, simplified network administration and richer communications services) can now benefit from state-of-the-art customer service features that deliver:
More cost-effective home working (making it fast, simple and cheaper to set up contact centre agents at home)
Greater choice in the way customers can contact an organisation. CallPlus IP manages customer contacts by phone, SMS, Instant Messaging, web forms, email and fax in a totally integrated manner - and will soon also support MMS and video interactions
The ability to deploy contact centre technology either in-house or as a hosted network-based service
Advanced functionality (CallPlus IP supports a range of advanced contact centre services from stereo call recording to web collaboration)
Another advantage for organisations deploying homeworkers is CallPlus IP's ability to provide detailed management reports and call recordings - mitigating against the possibility of homeworkers losing productivity in an unsupervised environment. Managers can create reports on how many calls are answered, call durations, missed calls, and on various aspects of call quality. Plus, with CallPlus IP, control of contact centre configuration remains in the hands of the Contact Centre Manager, without requiring IT support at all times.
As well as delivering advanced features, this new generation of communications solution can also cut calling costs - without the need to put in dedicated lines or additional bandwidth into workers' homes.
By Paul Skinner, Sales Director, Macfarlane Telesystems
020 7314 1314
