Monitoring the Business
Small business owners constantly face the difficult challenge of reaching an appropriate work/life balance. The opportunity of being able to fit travel in to their schedules or be away from their business for an extended amount of time often seems like an impossible dream especially if you belong to industries such as hospitality, or if you’re a small business owner and your business relies on you being there physically to run properly.
Today so much new technology aimed at eliminating the boundaries of timing and location is becoming available. Teleworking is a luxury that allows more and more people to have the opportunity to have greater freedom to work from wherever and whenever they choose to.
We often hear from small business owners who have successfully implemented digital work or telework as part of their business and they claim that one of the major wins of the online revolution is that you now have the capability to coordinate complicated tasks and manage your business from anywhere in the world.
Let’s know the Benefits of Teleworking
The benefits of teleworking are clear and range from:
- The reduced costs of running and maintaining an office.
- The opportunity to monitor all aspects of your business whilst juggling other commitments or being away.
- Mental health benefits of reducing stress and anxiety which can be associated with working long hours and not having enough time to spend with family and friends.
Whilst teleworking offers a wide range of benefits, it is important to make sure that teleworking suits your business model.
Some questions you should ask yourself before jumping into telework include:
- Is my role suited for telework? Not all roles are suitable for telework and it is important to ensure that the quality of your work and service to your customers is not compromised due to you not being physically present.
- Will telework provide enough return on investment? Whilst the benefits of having a flexible schedule as well as having the comfort and convenience of working from any location are hard to look past, it is definitely worthwhile measuring the financial outcomes of telework.
- Have I taken the correct measures to protect my and my client’s data security and privacy? All business owners must constantly and actively take the appropriate actions to protect their own and their client’s data security and privacy. For a comprehensive list of safety precautions you need to undertake, be sure to check out our Telework Privacy and Security check list.
Once you’ve measured all the risks and benefits associated with Telework and have found that it suits your business, your next step is to make the transition in to telework.
We’ve put together a list of tools that will make your transition smoother and easier:
1. Digital Phone Apps
Apps like Skype and Viber are your best friend when travelling overseas or in other states of Australia. Assuming you have access to WiFi, with a little preparation you will be able to chat with anyone from anywhere in the world via sms, voice chat or even video chat.
You can even connect with multiple users at the same time to have real-time, video-conferences that are almost as good as being there in person. Just make sure you have a solid WiFi connection and you are good to go.
Both Skype and Viber are 100% free assuming you are communicating to another person using the same software. If you would like to call/SMS a landline or mobile phone these can be achieved at a reasonable cost.
2. Email
This one might seem obvious but it definitely should be noted. If you are overseas you might not always have access to WiFi; this is where emails, which need only low speed connections such as provided by mobile broadband, become invaluable.
You can communicate a large amount of information and keep on top of a lot of things simply through using your email. There are many benefits of using email as part of your teleworking strategy which you should consider when putting together a strategy for email use.
However, this resource is limited and can get confusing if you are balancing a lot of different tasks. This is where online project management software can become useful.
3. Project Management Software
If there is a lot going on within your business/organization and you need to coordinate and keep track of many different people then perhaps you need a service such as:
These kinds of software allow you to invite multiple people to communicate and coordinate tasks using an online platform. Users are able to post questions, list tasks and register their progress in an online space so that you and everyone in your organization knows the status of various tasks and processes.
These kinds of software are generally free for a limited number of people and are charged once this threshold is reached.
If you need to be a little bit more hands on and access the computers at your place of business, remote desktop products are readily available.
4. Remote Desktop
If you really need to get technical and hands-on with the computers back home, products like TeamViewer and Ammyy will be perfect for you.Using these amazingly simple pieces of software, you can access and use computers anywhere in the world as if you were there. Simply install the program on both computers and with a little bit of tweaking you should be ready to go in no time.
This comes with obvious security concerns, so be careful whenever you use remote software!
We hope that your transition into telework is seamless and painless and you find good use in the information we’ve provided. If you have any questions or need any further guidance, we at digital Ready have put together a comprehensive and detailed course on all you need to consider when thinking about telework as an option for your business.
Alsco would like to thank Paula Corvalan of Digital Ready for this article. Digital Ready provides small business owners, organisations and clubs the knowledge to take advantage of latest technology on growing business anywhere and anytime.
The peace of mind you get when running a business is simply one of the best thing. Using latest technology gadgets and applications is a big help on monitoring your employee’s work so as your business.
We at Alsco want to provide nothing but the best services to make workplaces safe. Learn more about Alsco’s Managed Training Service to secure the safety of your business’s work environment. Contact us now 1300 659 892!
Photo Courtesy: Matthew Hurst