Remote Working Archives

SMART CONSIDERATIONS FOR REMOTE WORKFORCE TRAINING

For much of the past two decades, online classes and webinars have become a staple of organizational learning and development programs. But in the COVID-19 era, demand for remote workforce training has spiked. A key reason: some remote employees find communication, collaboration and productivity more challenging in a home-office environment.

The issue is even more pressing for any organization with a high percentage of their workforce at home. Employees need more support now than they ever have. After all, it’s more difficult to collaborate or finish a project when you can’t pop into co-worker’s office with a question. Companies simply can’t afford to wait until physical offices reopen and in-person training resumes.

Another reason it’s an ideal time to ramp up remote workforce training is that employees may have more free time. Without a daily commute and fewer outside activities, they have more flexibility to take advantage of training opportunities.

The pandemic is an excellent time to invest in remote workforce training, but there are several factors companies should consider when drafting a training plan.

The Benefits Of Remote Workforce Training

Generally speaking, workforce training helps organizations build employee skill sets across a wide range of subjects. Remote workforce training offers some additional benefits. This approach to learning is:

Cost-effective: Remote training sessions are typically less expensive than in-person classes since there’s no need to cover the cost of travel or a dedicated physical location.
Convenient: Employees can participate in remote learning from anywhere—at home, on the road or in the office. Naturally, remote training is particularly suited to the world of social distancing, but it’s just as convenient when employees return to the office.
Customizable: Since remote training is available in a variety of formats, employees have the ability to create a curriculum that’s customized to their specific needs.
Scalable: It’s easier to add more options, in terms of both variety and scheduling, when working with remote learning.

Since remote workforce training is easy and convenient, your employees are more likely to participate. They can select topics that appeal to them, at a time that’s convenient and in their preferred learning format.

What To Consider In Your Remote Training Plan

When offering remote training sessions, keep several factors in mind. For example, what are the topics your employees struggle with the most? What are their preferred formats for learning? The simplest way to answer these questions is to consult the source: Ask your team members. Once you’ve received their input, you can offer the right blend of sessions to provide both the content type and format that meets your staff’s needs.

When planning, it’s smart to put three areas at the top of your consideration list: training formats, engagement and topics.

Build A Strong Healthcare Ecosystem

Today’s online training is available in a wide variety of formats, including:

Instructor-led: A live video or prerecorded session. Self-paced sessions: Audio or video sessions that allow attendees to move at their own pace.
Webinars: Prerecorded videos that employees can view at their convenience.
File sharing: Shared document spaces that house training materials for employees to access.
Remote desktop: Live demonstrations performed after an employee passes over control of their screen to a moderator.
Podcasts: Audio recordings employees listen to and learn from.

Engagement

Remote training has numerous advantages, but only if employees are fully engaged. That’s not always easy. For instance, instructors find it takes more effort to create an interactive session remotely than it does in-person. Attendees may be more distracted by their surroundings, and so find it harder to focus. Technical difficulties can also wreak havoc.

Organizations can overcome these challenges by sharing a few guidelines. For instance, simple practices such as silencing their phone can help attendees stay focused. In addition, when properly designed, remote sessions foster plenty of engagement through file sharing, online chat and group discussions. To keep engagement high, McKinsey recommends these best practices.

Before the session:

Test the technology.
Make access easy (e.g. provide local dial-in numbers and web links ahead of time).
Designate a moderator to field and address questions.
Provide training materials in advance.

During the session:

Use communications technology features such as chat or online polls to interact with attendees.
Leverage video technology to carry yourself as you would during an in-person session.

After the session:

Provide follow-up materials as needed.
Ask for feedback.
Troubleshoot any technical issues before the next session.

Topics

Remote workforce training is well-suited for a range of topics from leadership and management courses to software applications. But for today’s pressing need—how to help your workforce communicate and collaborate more effectively as they work from home—training that’s focused on unified communications tools and technology is especially valuable. By learning tips and tricks such as how to assign tasks, share files and create agendas for meetings, employees can connect and work together as easily as if they were a cubicle away.

Introtel customers have an opportunity right now to build up their technical skills. To support your investment in training, we’re offering all Mitel developed and delivered self-paced training free through Aug. 31, 2020. The discount includes certifications for MiCollab and Mitel Border Gateway (MBG), which are ideal solutions to enable remote workers to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.So far, our customers have found remote training so beneficial that many are coming back for more.

Remote workforce training enables companies to make an investment in their workforce now—when employees need it most. Keep your workforce productive, engaged and connected by considering the above factors when putting together your training plan.

Source:Mitel

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6 Signs Your COVID-19 Workforce Needs Cloud Phone Technology

Cloud communications, Digital Transformation, Mitel, News & Trends, Remote Working

Almost overnight, the number of remote workers increased dramatically, as businesses mandated “work-from-home” policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s no telling when the situation will change. Even when restrictions ease on social distancing, employees may not be able to return to the office in full force, and future waves of distancing have been predicted. You may have been perfectly satisfied with your communications solution in the pre-COVID days, but you may find yourself realizing you now need something more robust. If your current phone system isn’t able to handle the office exodus, that’s a glaring sign you’re due for a change.

The good news during this challenging time? A cloud phone solution, like MiCloud Connect, delivers the latest in mobility and ensures employees can work and collaborate from anywhere.

But mobility is just one problem solved by cloud phone technology. Chances are, your communications system is flashing yellow and red in other places as well. Some of these warnings are harder to recognize than others. If you’ve noticed any of the following signs, now is the time to make the switch.

COVID-19: 6 signs it's time to upgrade your communications

High traffic is reducing the quality of your communications. People might run on coffee, but business are powered by a reliable and consistent network. With fewer people working in the office due to social distancing, just about all communications is now handled remotely. Can your current phone system support the increased demand? Slowdowns, dropped calls and low-quality video impede conversations, frustrating employees and customers. Ask providers about their track record. As a reference point, Mitel has 99.995 percent uptime backed by SLAs and financial penalties if we don’t meet these standards. Other important items to look for in a reliable solution are Tier 4 data centers with several layers of redundancy and multiple connectivity options with automatic failover. With these built-in capabilities, employees work fast and never miss a chance to drive customer satisfaction higher.
You’re concerned about security. This is a hot topic both in the news and at weekly IT meetings. With more employees working from home, protecting sensitive information is a top priority. But if you’re not 100 percent confident in your communications system, you’ll want to ask vendors some hard questions. For example: Do they offer Secure Real-Time Transfer Protocol (SRTP), which ensures voice, web and signaling traffic is encrypted? What platform are they using and what levels of security do they offer? At Mitel, we decided to amp up security by partnering with Google Cloud. Our customers benefit from the same reliable and trusted network infrastructure we all use for search and videos on a daily basis.
You operate in a regulated industry. In industries like healthcare or finance, compliance looms large. Violations are expensive and can tarnish your reputation. Spikes in telemedicine and virtual financial advising put companies at increased risk of non-compliance. However, when you work with a cloud phone provider committed to ensuring high levels of security and protecting sensitive data, you’ll ease your IT burden. MiCloud Connect, for example, is certified to meet Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards and Service Organization Control Type II (SOC 2) compliance, helping you adhere to even the most stringent requirements.
You need to adapt – quickly and constantly. Every day seems to bring on a new challenge as the world battles COVID-19. Businesses need to be able to rapidly respond to changing demands and requirements. Ask yourself how difficult it is to add or remove lines and users to your current system. If it requires a call to the vendor every time you need to make a change, then it’s time for a cloud phone solution. The beauty of the cloud is that it’s so easy to adjust to new conditions. You can add or remove seats and upgrade permissions in real time, which means your business is more agile. A scalable solution keeps you competitive, while also offering flexible pricing plans so you can stay within budget.
It’s getting harder to meet client expectations. The coronavirus has created a unique marketplace, in which employees and customers are almost 100 percent reliant on technology to conduct business. It has become all too easy to fall behind without integrated collaboration tools. A stellar customer experience is more important than ever, but it can be difficult to deliver when employees are taking extra steps to share documents or discuss issues remotely. When collaboration is built into communications, it’s easier for employees to exceed customer expectations. For example, with click-to-join access for web, audio and video conferencing, a product manager can convene his team to resolve a pressing issue quickly, getting goods in the hands of customers at the right moment. In addition, a persistent workspace with chat, tasks and file sharing gives teams the ability to collaborate in real time. When employee collaboration is easy and seamless outside the physical office, customers get answers faster and satisfaction soars.
Managing multiple licenses keeps you very busy. Every second counts when you’re trying to run a remote employee workforce and keep customers engaged. You don’t have time to worry about managing multiple licenses for your communications system. With a cloud phone solution, you can mix and match license types on a single plan. Need a contact center? Collaboration tools? It’s simple to add licenses on-demand and manage each user via their own profile. And since your cloud provider is responsible for infrastructure, you don’t have to worry about maintenance or carry the cost of unused equipment or lines. Plus, budgeting on an operating expenses (OpEx) model is predictable and easy, which is important in these uncertain times.

All signs point to cloud phone technology

COVID-19 has changed the way we do business. The new “normal” requires organizations to support remote communications and collaboration and to respond quickly to changing conditions. If any of the signs discussed above are flashing red or yellow in your organization, it’s time to start exploring what cloud phone technology can do for your business. A solution like MiCloud Connect will adapt to your business needs, ensuring you stay current with the latest technology – and healthy in the battle against the coronavirus.

Source:Mitel

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HOW TO REGAIN YOUR BALANCE WHEN WORK AND LIFE COLLIDE

Many of us have worked from home, at least on an occasional basis. But few were prepared to transition from in-office to remote work as abruptly as we did during the spread of COVID-19. Yet, here we are: the pandemic has thrust us into a situation tha’s proving to be much more challenging than anyone expected.

It’s common for newly remote workers to find it difficult to stay focused and productive. Those who live alone face the additional challenge of dealing with the effects of extreme isolation. On the other hand, people with families struggle with almost zero quiet time as they share limited space with house-bound kids and spouses.

When team members can’t perform at full capacity, tasks take longer to complete and projects get delayed. If a colleague works at odd hours to accommodate a busy household, their colleagues may not get the information they need to perform their job in a timely manner. All of this creates a drag on productivity.

Over the past few months, we at Mitel have come to embrace the work-from-home culture, putting our unified communications technology to good use. In this time of social distancing, we’ve learned that embracing self-care and mastering virtual collaboration are the keys to getting our jobs done.

To help our customers and partners deal with isolation, work-life balance and productivity, we’ve gathered our best advice. If you work even a few of these tips into your daily routine, you’ll be well on your way to a less stressful and more productive remote-work life.

Feeling Isolated? Here's How To Connect

Even those with spouses or children at home can suffer from loneliness. We miss interacting with friends, going to the gym or grabbing a bite to eat at our favorite restaurant. Not being able to go into the office, see our co-workers and engage with them face-to-face only adds to our sense of loss.

How can remote workers overcome their feelings of isolation? We recommend the following:

Video Conference Whenever Possible.

Video conferencing is one of the most effective ways to maintain a face-to-face connection with your co-workers, and thus feel less isolated. In addition, video participants learn 200% more than with audio-only calls and absorb up to 40% more. That makes video conferencing good for our emotional state as well as our productivity levels.

Schedule Working Meetings.

Gather colleagues in a virtual meeting to collaborate on a project in real-time. With the ability to share documents on-screen, team members can provide instant feedback, brainstorm solutions to problems and apply their collective knowledge to fill in gaps. Shared workspaces, where employees can exchange files and documents, make collaboration easy – especially when working remotely. Team members can keep track of all work on a given project in one place and access it with one click.

Look For Connections In Your Surroundings.

A simple walk in your backyard listening to the birds chirp can give you a sense of connection to the living world around you. Mitel’s Regional Vice President Sue Anders makes it a point to do this periodically. Recently, she shared a photo of baby bird eggs in a nest and captioned it: “Change your perception of what a miracle is and you will see them all around you.” Sue’s LinkedIn feed includes more inspirational quotes and ideas to help you find joy and live in the present.

Schedule Virtual Connections.

If you plan for the times you’re most susceptible to loneliness, you’ll find it easier to avoid its trap. For example, if you’re loneliest in the evening, be sure to schedule a call with a friend or family member.

Kids And Spouses? Find That Work-Life Balance

Even while you feel isolated from your friends and extended family, you may also find you can’t get a moment’s peace. Perhaps you and your spouse are sharing the only home office space, and you’re distracted by their phone calls. Maybe your children are in constant need of your attention – either to help with virtual school or to act as a referee for yet another argument. Though it may seem impossible, there are ways to carve out some time for privacy.

Rearrange Schedules (And Stick To Them).

One of the few perks of virtual school is that you don’t have to follow the traditional school day precisely. If you need some quiet time for morning work calls, consider setting a schedule for your kids that puts some free time first, so you can participate in meetings without interruption. Alternatively, you may be able to adjust your working hours, logging some early morning or evening time that’s quiet, productive and just for you. Once set, be sure to stick to the schedule you’ve created. Kids thrive on routine, and they’re less likely to cause disruptions when they have clear boundaries set for school time, work time and playtime.

Use Call Recordings And Mobile.

If you need flex hours to tend to your kids, a unified communications solution allows you to record calls. That way, if you need to step out of a meeting to help with schoolwork, you can catch up immediately by listening to what you missed. You can also bring your mobile phone with you if you need to take your kids for a walk so they can let off steam. Even though you’re away from the house, you can still join in the meeting.

Create A Designated Workspace.

It’s all too easy for the lines to blur between parent, employee and spouse. A designated workspace can help set boundaries. When you’re in your “office”, ask others to knock before entering. When you step out, be sure to leave the work behind. After all, it’ll be waiting for you on your return.

Keep Your Kids Socially Active.

Social interaction is just as important for kids as it is for you. When they miss their friends and activities, encourage them to stay in contact through technology. You may very find less dissension within the ranks when they’re able to have virtual play dates.

Single parents have the additional challenge of navigating these waters solo. For example, there’s a greater chance their schedule may go out the window. You and your employer should keep in mind that communication and collaboration with your kids is just as important as it is with your co-workers. We have a special set of tips for single parents working from home to help manage it all.

For all parents, here are some additional tips to help you create a saner work-life balance.

Struggling With Productivity? Say No More

Before the pandemic, employees often said they were more productive when they worked from home. Why? Fewer distractions and meetings. But as they share their home office with family and cope with the anxiety of COVID-19, workers find daily distractions are more plentiful. As a result, it’s more challenging for them to stay productive.

Here are our top tips for staying on track and finishing that daily to-do list.

Carve Out Blocks Of Time.

It’s hard to stay focused with so much whirling around you. Setting aside designated blocks of time to work can help. Time chunking (or time blocking) is when you turn off your email and other messaging apps to concentrate on a specific task or project. Eliminating distractions will help you to get the job done faster, and often with a better result. A recent study found that when people can block out interruptions, there’s a 67% chance they’ll feel like they had a successful day, compared to a 44% chance when they’re interrupted frequently.

Create A To-Do List.

Before signing off for the day, write up a list of what you need to accomplish tomorrow. When you have the workday mapped out in advance, you’re more likely to stay on track and get things done. The same concept applies to meetings. A unified communications solution with an integrated agenda tracker will keep conference calls on schedule. You can even assign tasks to yourself and teammates, and track progress virtually.

Schedule Breaks.

It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re working from home. Before you know it, you’ve been at your desk (or dining room table) for several hours straight. Many employees fear being too distracted by household tasks, like laundry. But the opposite is also true: we spend all of our time at our desk. That’s why breaks are essential to productivity. Scheduling them into your day ensures you’ll actually take a breather and prevents them from getting out of control. We recommend 15-20 minutes to recharge without losing sight of the work still at hand. And make sure your breaks include stress-free, fun activities.

Other tips, such as a daily digital detox and focusing on the positives in your day and life, can help alleviate today’s overall stress and anxiety. We dig into these and other issues around the new work-from-home life in this post.

It’s an anxious time for employees around the world, and we’re all struggling to grapple with what comes next. The good news is that when it comes to your remote workday, there are things you can do to keep connections going, stay focused and be productive. The right combination of communications technology and daily habits can help you adjust to the new normal.

Source:Mitel

Want to learn more about one of the products or solutions mentioned above? Send an email to contact@introtel.com

Source:Mitel

THE WORKPLACE EVOLUTION: ADAPTING TO THE DIGITAL OFFICE

Meet the next generation of working styles. Changing demographics and evolving expectations of technology are transforming the workplace into a modern, but complex environment. It has presented IT teams with the challenge of both maintaining current systems and allowing for more effective processes. To stay competitive and support the needs of the business, choosing to adapt in the right way, with the right collaboration tool, is compulsory.

The Changing Face Of The Workplace

The workplace of today is unrecognisable from the past, and it’s still evolving at pace. No longer faced with the static nine-to-five office of 50 years ago, IT teams have had to adapt tools and devices to the needs of an increasingly mobile workforce that’s expected to reach almost 2 billion workers by 2022. Currently over half of employees work away from the office for half the working week.

For IT, the trend of flexible working brings added challenges and can mean time that could be dedicated to innovative projects is now reassigned. With work being completed from home, off-site locations and on the go, cafés are the second most popular place to work. This introduces new outside devices and networks to corporate systems, which can leave organisations vulnerable. Add to that the huge number of networked devices used for work tasks, which is predicted to reach 38.6 billion by 2025, and it makes the task of keeping devices maintained, up-to-date and secure even more complex and time consuming.

A totally virtual working space is an approaching reality – and with it comes the need for powerful connectivity. To stay productive across different locations and working hours, businesses rely on their IT departments to deliver capabilities that support effective collaboration and communication. Without it, work simply takes longer and results suffer.

The Connected Generation

The workplace shift goes beyond bricks and mortar. Younger generations are entering the workforce in droves, and they’re leading the digital revolution.

In 2020, Millennials and Generation Z, those born from the early 1980s to early 2010s, represent a significant proportion of the workplace. These generations have grown up in a world where the internet, smart devices and instant connectivity are ubiquitous, and they expect the same simple, connected communication platforms at work as they’ve been used to in other areas of their lives.

The frequency and fondness of communication varies depending on generation. Millennials, for example, often avoid face-to-face interactions in the workplace, with 55% preferring online messaging software and 28% choosing email to communicate. And for the Gen Z, frequency is key. Over 65% say they need regular feedback from their line manager to stay in their job. For IT, it means finding a simple way to accommodate these diverse preferences to ensure maximum productivity and inclusion.

The Race To Stay Ahead

These changes have brought an influx of applications and communication channels, which can negatively impact productivity. Using disparate systems will slow down a business. When systems aren’t compatible with each other, transferring data and knowledge from one program to another, or one person to another, can be arduous. And for IT teams, staying on top of management and training to use the systems takes even longer.

Plus, employees are less than impressed with the daunting number of channels at play. Almost a quarter of IT professionals have found that the communication options available can be overwhelming to staff. It also makes it harder and more time consuming to keep track of information, forcing a long search across platforms to find the details needed. The solution is simple: implement one easy-to-use tool.

Today’s IT departments are under more pressure than ever. From the growing demands of the workforce to disparate systems, the current day-to-day workload is both complex and time consuming. So exploring a solution that unifies communication into one platform across the whole business makes it simpler for IT teams to manage systems. It means they can reassign their time to innovative, future-looking projects while boosting overall employee productivity. Plus, it helps IT to contribute to business growth and gain added flexibility over the implementation of new systems.

Choose To Embrace The Future

The modern working world holds plenty of exciting opportunities, and collaboration in ideas and knowledge is essential to react to them. The right communication systems can facilitate a workplace that delivers exceptional customer experience and supports business growth in today’s fast-paced, decentralised environment. For mobile workers, three hours a week can be lost without using unified communications and collaboration tools.

At Mitel, we understand the pressure you’re under. Our unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) solutions support IT teams – giving you the power to choose which systems to make available, and how to roll them out. It lets you have the choice of on-premise, cloud or hybrid, the choice of when to upgrade and which systems to make available to which employees.

We work with you to uncover your unique business requirements before tailoring solutions to meet them. It means the solution is adapted to your needs, powering efficiency in the areas you need it most, while making it considerably easier to manage.

Our approach is flexible and agile, and we work within your existing network – seamlessly integrating to eliminate technical complexity and make adoption simple. We’re here to help you drive business forward.

Source:Mitel