Business
Remote working has a positive outcome during the big freeze.
8th January 2010
Keeping companies working through the snow
As businesses try to assess the crippling cost of the bad weather, a local entrepreneur has ensured that for many companies it has simply been business as usual.
Julian Lewis, the managing director of Positive Computing, has himself been able to run the business from his Bucklebury home and keep in touch with his team, who have also been able to work from home, during the worst of the winter weather, rather than trek into the offices in Reading.
He explained: “Most have chosen remote access techniques simply for flexibility, where staff are mobile or for environmental reason of cutting down journeys, however, the crippling snow has meant these clients have thrived while other businesses have been closed."
As the forecast came in, Positive Computing saw demand soar, explained Julian Lewis: “This week has been a busy week for Positive Computing. Faced with the prospect of heavy snow we started to receive calls Tuesday morning from clients looking to set-up work from home solutions and traffic to our website, www.positivecomputing.com has soared.”
Positive Computing has a wealth of knowledge in the various IT techniques that can be used to set-up home and remote workers, indeed all its staff can work from home with both IT and telephony access.
Day to day the firm uses remote access techniques to help its clients over the Internet which gives a faster fix and reduces costs. Many of the companies they have helped have been able to use these very same access methods to set-up their staff to work from home during the bad weather.Getting seamless telephony is something fewer companies have adopted and many are using mobile phones and call forwarding.
Changes to telephony systems now mean that you can have a fully integrated home office linked back to head office no different to being in the office next door.Julian Lewis concluded: “We fully expect our clients to reassess their home and mobile working requirements in the light of this bad weather. We will be able to work with them to ensure that next time this situation occurs they will see little or no impact to their business.
”One satisfied customer is Ann Saunders, a director of the Newbury-based Professional Jockeys Association, who said: “We have team members spread throughout Hampshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire who could not get to the office and not all had remote access set up. It quickly became apparent that this was a failing on our part and that it was essential that we did all we could to achieve “business as usual”.
“Our tentative phone call to Positive was met with the usual efficiency and professionalism and within a short time all team members were all fully operational.”
Andrew Woosnam from recruitment company Premier Group has offices in Reading and London explained how remote working has helped this week: “It has been vital to our business that we have been able to work remotely. Most of our senior staff were already set up, but Positive Computing moved quickly to get our junior staff and new people set up so we have been able to work throughout the bad weather.
“We are an IT and engineering recruitment company and it was important that we stay in touch with clients and candidates and we needed to be able to access our database; working remotely has been a lifesaver.”
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