Recent unprecedented challenges faced by businesses have led to a significant shift in the approach of both employers and employees to working practices.
It will come as no surprise to learn that the number of people working from home has increased dramatically over the past two years. Forty years ago just 1.5% of employed people permanently worked from home and even by 2019 this had only tripled to 4.7%.
However, Covid-19 and then recent fuel supply issues have resulted in a huge increase in home working, enabling greater employment flexibility, better work-life balance and improved wellbeing.
And there’s no going back.
Latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics reveal that 26% of workers in the UK work from home and another 11% split their time between home and workplace.
Thus, where working from home may once have been the exception rather than the rule for staff, it certainly looks like now becoming the new normal, be it permanent or a split hybrid version. Some businesses are even looking to downsize, or ‘rightsize’ their office space requirements on a permanent basis.
So what makes this all possible? The answer is, crucially, good IT and the use of enabling cloud technologies that allow users to work remotely and without any compromise. We have seen huge improvements in cloud technology and faster communications which combine to make a perfect ‘work anywhere on any device’ platform.
The huge uptake of collaborative and communication tools such as Microsoft Teams have enabled staff to work closely together despite being physically apart. More and more companies are reducing or, indeed, removing their need for office-based servers which typically hold all of their company data and emails and are moving it into cloud-based services.
Not only does this reduce capital costs – particularly on the investment of hardware – but it hugely improves on business continuity and disaster recovery planning because cloud-based services are run in offsite datacentres which are well backed up and benefit from failover to other hardware or sites.
When the first lockdown was announced, almost every one of our clients instantly needed a work from home capability. It was clear to see that those clients who were already migrated or part migrated to the cloud had a much easier time of it in getting up and running and hitting maximum productivity.
Since then we have seen more companies make the jump to the cloud and further investments in remote working have been made.
We have seen a big rise in demand for our cloud migration service where we move company data from on premise server hardware into the cloud with Microsoft Office 365. In addition, there has been an increase in requirements for our telecoms services with upgrades to broadband, leased lines and our feature-rich cloud-based phone system.
Users at home make, receive, and transfer phone calls seamlessly on their office extensions as if they were in the office and their customer and suppliers know no different.
Interpro Technology Systems is a leading IT support service provider and offers a complete range of cloud solutions from hosted servers, emails and file storage using Office 365 to a fully hosted cloud-based phone system.
Interpro can help your company get the very best out of remote working using well setup technology that is tailored for your business.
For a free IT audit or consultation, please get in touch through info@interprotech.co.uk or call 01329 556226.
Interpro Technology Solutions Ltd was founded in 2005 and provides fully managed IT support to small and medium businesses in Portsmouth, Fareham, Southampton, surrounding Hampshire areas and further afield.
The Fareham Heights-based company also specialises in websites, servers, networking, hosted telephone systems and broadband solutions across the UK.
Sister company Interpro Development provides bespoke software solutions from customer relationship management programs to intuitive and responsive web applications.
