Business
10 tips to build your boss’s trust in mobile working
24th November 2011
By Celia Donne, regional director, Regus business centres
As companies wise up to the benefits of mobile working, are the right workers being trusted to get on with the job?Many businesses have realised that they can save on property costs, improve staff morale and raise productivity if they replace a traditional fixed office model with an agile working alternative, but trust remains a major hurdle to the progress of mobile working.
In the Regus Flexible Working Report 2011, 40 per cent of UK companies surveyed felt that only senior staff are sufficiently trusted to be given some level of flexibility.
Yet ironically, it is usually managers who need to be in a fixed office because they have teams to manage or they prefer to work in the way they have always worked. Younger, less senior staff are the ones that need the freedom and flexibility of working in an ‘anytime, anyplace, anywhere environment’ to fit in with family life and retain a better work-life balance.
Mobile working is on the increase thanks to advances in IT and connectivity. By 2013 market research firm IDC predicts more than a third of the world’s workforce will be mobile workers1 with nearly 130 million people in Western Europe being mobile.
But while companies adapt to this rapidly changing agile workplace, it’s up to the workforce to prove it can be trusted in a mobile world where self-regulation and self-discipline are the watchwords.
So if you get the chance to work in a flexible way, build up trust by following these 10 tips to improving your productivity, reliability and efficiency:
1. Make sure you’re properly kitted out. Work with your manager or your IT department to ensure you get the best and most appropriate technology to help you work efficiently when you’re working remotely.
2. Working from home all week can be isolating. Making the effort to show your face at your company’s main site at least once a week will ensure you’re not forgotten and keep you in touch with what’s going on.
3. Don’t forget health and safety at home. If your company allows homeworking make sure your home office is ergonomic, with a chair that is appropriate for the hours you will be working and a desk at the right height.
3. Cafés are for food and drink not business. Business and the bustling café latte culture do not always mix. If you want a quiet place to work while on the road, find a professional business lounge to get online and be productive.
4. If you want your business to remain confidential, don’t have meetings in hotel lobbies. Although it is tempting to meet a client in a hotel, remember that private conversations are never private in public areas. It is not necessary to compromise on confidentiality when there are business centres offering private rooms in every major town and city across the world.
5. Mobile calls fascinate strangers on a train. If you have to take a call on a train, make sure the person on the line knows where you are. Suggest you call back when you’re back in a more suitable place such as your office or a business centre.
6. Seek alternatives to the client’s spare workspace. For mobile workers who have to be near clients but don’t want them to overhear sensitive conversations, outsourced workplace providers offer first-class offices, which can be reserved by the hour, day, month or year, and allow you to keep your business professional and private.
7. Use technology to ensure a comfortable work-life balance, while saving the environment. Set up a videoconference at a nearby business centre so you don’t disturb your family by travelling to a meeting abroad. Videoconferencing gives you face-to-face contact and helps reduce air miles.
8. Travel doesn’t have to be unproductive. Business lounges and business centres at airports provide real desks with high-speed internet connections, so you can stay productive on the move and fill ‘dead time’ checking the emails that have piled up while you’re away.
9. Casual isn’t always professional. All kinds of casual settings from bookstores to libraries now have high-speed internet access. But are they the best place to finish off your presentation or write that urgent report? Drop-in business lounges offer immediate walk-in access to private offices with all the administrative and back-up support needed to complete the task in a professional environment.
10. Don’t forget to network and collaborate. When you’re on the road it can be hard to remain connected with your colleagues. Join any form of network your company provides to meet formally and informally. Make sure you get together face-to-face when offered the opportunity.
From broadband and wi-fi to tablet PCs and smartphones, technology is driving change faster than most organisations can adapt. As mobile working rapidly advances changes in the way we work, companies will be left by the wayside unless they evolve with the times.
But while it’s vitally important that companies maximise the productivity of remote workers by offering them support, it’s just as critical for employees to take every effort to remain productive as they shoulder more responsibility.
n The Newbury Regus centre is located in Oxford House, 12 - 20 Oxford Street www.regus.co.uk
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