Home working: a strategy for business continuity
As organisations rethink their business strategies and staff reassess their work-life balance priorities, enabling home/flexible working may become the only solution to recruiting and retaining key staff. Another factor which is encouraging the burgeoning of home working is its potential use as a business continuity strategy during any future ‘flu pandemic. For years, commentators have been advocating a broader adoption of home or flexible working to address a myriad of issues created by the 24x7 society - from reducing the cost of the road and rail infrastructure (and associated carbon emissions) to enabling single parents, carers and people with disabilities back into the workforce. Yet in 2006, society still firmly adheres to the increasingly uncomfortable strategy of commuting on overcrowded roads and in cramped trains to a place of work. Not only is this approach outdated, unproductive and expensive; it is an unnecessary business risk. During a pandemic, schools and public transport will shut down to prevent infection. Many employees will simply not be able to get to work. Enabling flexible and home working is not just the only sensible solution to society’s current challenges but is also a failsafe approach that will enable real business continuity, not only after the onset of any future pandemic but during other incidents which result in denial of access to business premises. Taking control Nor do all managers like the idea of losing control by allowing workers to operate remotely. But this perception of lost control is outdated. The technology is available today to remotely monitor every aspect of employee activity – from voice recording to keystroke monitoring. Activity can be analysed in detail and, if required, on-screen actions can be matched to a voice recording to deliver complete insight into and control over the remote working process. Indeed, a call centre manager has exactly the same level of control over the remote workforce as a centrally located workforce. So why force individuals to make an expensive and stressful journey to a central location every day? Business transformation The technology is available to automatically redirect direct dial numbers to an individual’s location – whether that is at home or, if preferred, small local business units. And individuals need to get used to working this way today. Providing the option for home working but only allowing it in the face of potential economic disaster is a dangerous policy: individuals will have had no opportunity to come to terms with the new way of working. In a high stress situation such as a ‘flu pandemic, they are unlikely to adapt quickly. Just as London’s banks ensure that dealers regularly operate from the standby hot site to ensure familiarity in the event of a disaster, organisations need to begin to test and practice with the necessary technologies. This will enable a gradual progression towards flexible and home working and ensure that everything runs smoothly when it is used during any future business disruption. However, simply bolting on a remote working solution to the existing telephony infrastructure will not deliver the flexibility or cost reductions required. Indeed it will simply add cost, as some organisations have already discovered. To truly adopt new working practices, organisations need to invest in telephony technology that has been designed specifically to support flexible working, from easy DDI call redirection to voice recording. It is only with the right, cost effective, infrastructure in place that organisations can really begin to leverage the benefits of the new working environment. Working shift This latter fact is becoming ever more important as UK organisations recognise the value of onshore call centres for customer facing services. Indeed, while companies continue to offshore business processes such as finance to India, an increasing number are actively advertising the availability of UK based call centre personnel in a bid to win back disenfranchised customers. But just where are these new call centres to be built and staff recruited? There is a huge untapped labour force of single parents, carers and house-bound people who have excellent skills that could be invaluable to the UK economy if able to work from home. There are no technical barriers to enabling this fundamental shift in working practices. But it needs commitment at both business and government level. To date, the UK government has done little more than tinker around the edges of numerous ‘flexible working’ policies that have simply failed to deliver. Rather than invest in over used rail and road networks and ‘back to work’ initiatives, surely it would be far better to provide business incentives to enable home or local based working practices that would reduce travel, boost local communities and deliver social inclusion policies? Furthermore, it would ensure that, irrespective of ‘flu, fuel shortages or terrorism, the UK could continue business as usual. Surely that is a policy worth advocating. Graham Chick is chief executive of GemaTech. Reader comment The article about working from home is so true. I work in business continuity and technology recovery planning and have worked from home for more than 15 years with my own company and my current employer. I have had back surgery and often had to take time off work due to that issue. Working from home allowed me to be productive even when I am hurting. I do go into the office periodically for the social issues and to make sure that people recognize me. My main department is located in another state, however other departments that I work with are located locally and I talk with them and go to lunch with them when I’m in town. Most of my work is done nationally and internationally via telephone and net conferencing anyway, so a home office works out well. One issue I encountered on our recent wind storm here in the Northwest of Washington State last week was that I had a generator for heat, lights and computers etc. However, I recently switched from the telephone company DSL to a cable modem to gain some speed. The cable went down with the power outage, but the phone survived. I had everything I needed but network connectivity! I would have had network connectivity if I still had the telephone company DSL. That was a bit ironic for someone working in disaster recovery! That should be thought about when working from home for disasters planning. The phone company can withstand and survive in most disasters where cable doesn’t seem to have planned for it. They need to get on the ball now that so many are using cable modems for network connectivity and not just cable TV! Rich Collingwood, Business Strategy Analyst - Lead
•Date: 21st Dec 2006• Region: UK/World •Type: Article •Topic: BC general |
