Mobile working has become a bit of a buzzword recently, suggested by some as a solution to our productivity problems, and by others as an out-of-reach utopia, difficult to monitor and implement..
However, the research shows broad support in principle. In fact, the 2005 Working Nation* report found that 45 per cent of small businesses believe people are more creative when they are not tied to one location at work. Furthermore, over half say they don’t need people to turn up at nine and go home at five any more.
The government is also supportive of any move to introduce flexible working, especially if it supports childcare requirements. The trade unions are also putting the spotlight on overtime and the Working Time Directive. Mobile working is likely to remain a hot topic for some time.
But what is the real issue for small businesses that are looking to develop and grow? For many, it’s about punching above their weight, using technology intelligently to offer levels of service and responsiveness that would not have been realistic previously without having a detrimental impact on staff welfare or productivity.
The essence of mobile working is to allow a growing business to act as it needs to. This means taking advantage of immediate opportunities and increasing the customers’ perception of innovation and customer care.
Mobile services help to deliver this by providing the flexibility of being able to choose when and where you work and therefore the agility to be more reactive to unexpected requests. If used to their full potential, the only challenges a small business should have to address are the goals the founders have set for the business, not the obstacles that they need to overcome to get the most out of the technology investment.
Keith Woods-Holder, who is the founder of KWHR, one of Vodafone UK’s suppliers, told me recently about how he puts this theory into practice. Recently, he was on the road in the UK when he learned a key client had requested an impromptu training session on KWHR products. He pulled over to a roadside service station and established a web seminar with a colleague who was in Germany at the time, and the client, who was based in the US.
Although he was only carrying his laptop and the 3G data card he was able to run a real-time e-learning session on KWHR’s products and services. An experience which, he tells me, worked perfectly.
This is a very sophisticated example of mobile working. For others it’s more simple, but just as effective. It’s the means to manage messages and keep up-to-date with customer orders, fulfilment and the general running of the business – whether from a customer site, on the road, in the office or from home.
Many growing businesses have already adopted some form of mobile working to help manage the day-to-day running of the company – they just don’t necessarily equate it to this term.
In the context of increasingly mobile sales teams, global fleet deployments and an undeniable emphasis on travelling for business throughout the UK and abroad, mobile working is now more than ever before a part of everyday business life.
However, there is still a cultural gap that exists in many organisations. In Britain we still talk about ‘going to work’, and have a fixed idea of the workplace as a fixed location that we travel to. However, according to research from Barclays**, the average British worker spends over six hours a week commuting to and from work, rising to over seven hours in London.
Furthermore, this doesn’t take into account the time spent getting to and from meetings or appointments as part of the working day. A survey by the Chartered Management Institute*** found that 79 per cent of managers have missed vital meetings, 17 per cent have lost business opportunities, 21 per cent reported a decline in productivity and 35 per cent told of increased levels of irritability at work, all down to transport problems.
These statistics alone offer a compelling business case for mobile working. After all, what would most of us prefer our staff to be doing, sitting in traffic or doing productive work remotely?
The trick is to empower staff to make their own decisions in line with the needs of the business and to ensure that this cuts across all levels, avoiding the potential for an ‘us and them’ situation.
My own day-to-day working life takes me across the country, and as a result I tend to work where ever I can. Also, having young children, it's important to me not to have to work through the evening.
Therefore, I tend to take the train rather than drive, so that I can work on my laptop answering emails and taking calls when I’m on the move. This is also helpful in dealing with the ‘dead time’ between out-of-the-office meetings, since I can log on in moments and deal with urgent items as soon as they come up. I also encourage this in my team as well.
In fact many of them now choose to work from home and only come into the office when they need to, working from the ‘hot desks’ that we have available in all our premises.
The good news is that the technology is not an expensive luxury. A mobile phone is no longer just for making and receiving calls. The new ‘smart phone’ devices combine voice and data services, offering a virtual ‘PC in your pocket’.
This means that email is no longer restricted to the desktop and you can send and receive emails, as well as read and edit attachments in Word and Excel files, allowing genuine out of the office working. They also synchronise with PC-based email, calendar and contacts systems for greater accuracy when scheduling meetings on the move.
As time goes on we will see more and more business applications such as job scheduling or CRM tools move onto the mobile device. This stands to offer great benefits to those whose roles are concentrated out of the office – such as delivery drivers or field sales people – and will become even more of a reality as HSDPA – or 3G Broadband –become available.
Many laptops these days are purpose-built for working on the move, with in-built WLAN access cards, which allow users to simply log-on whenever you are in a ‘hot spot’ found at many cafés, rail stations and airports.
A 3G data card allows you to go one step further and access the internet away from these hotspots wherever there is a mobile signal which, in the case of Vodafone UK, covers 99% of the UK population, either via what is known as ‘3G’ and ‘2.5G’ (or ‘GPRS’).
The latest in mobile technology, 3G offers fast speeds for browsing on the internet, similar to a broadband connection, whilst GPRS is the fallback where 3G is out of range.
A 3G data card therefore allows users to send and receive emails, text messages, use instant messaging services and receive, amend and send documents as if they were in the office. Furthermore, both 3G data cards and other mobile devices can also be used abroad once the roaming bars have been lifted.
Many operators also offer very competitive pricing packages designed for those who need to connect when out of the country – often for little or no extra subscription fee. It won’t belong before we see this kind of technology embedded within the laptop itself, much the same as Wi-Fi is today, which will eliminate the need to carry around separate equipment - it will simply be a case of turning on and selecting the best connection for the situation that you are in.
In today’s society, in which we have realised the benefits of giving ourselves and our staff greater work/life balance, it would be foolish not to look at the benefits that mobile working technology offers.
In fact the chances are, especially if you already use a mobile and have a laptop computer, that you already have most of the tools, and have committed most of the expense, that you need to enable it.
The trick is making sure that the new flexible culture is respected by all those that benefit from it. Do that bit right and you’ll prosper.
- Evaluate the needs of every person or department within the company, generally one size doesn’t fit all
- Create a map of where your staff travel for their day-to-day work, check for wireless LAN hotspots in the area, 3G coverage and distances between home and office locations
- Find out what capabilities you have already, such as wireless LAN connectivity on laptops or broadband connections in your employees’ homes
- Check out if you can get a better deal by looking at bulk purchasing options, many of the operators and IT resellers offer excellent packages
- Finally, don’t think you have to do everything at once. It is worth running a trial with a couple of trusted staff before making the decision to invest
* Working Nation – views from people at work; ‘Loyalty at Work’, February 2005, Vodafone UK. The research took place between April and November 2004 with 300 senior businesspeople in the UK including 100 from large corporate bodies, 100 from small and medium-sized enterprise, 100 from one-man-bands and an internet panel of 1,000 employees in the UK.
** The Guardian 28/02/2003 – Barclays Survey
*** Chartered Management Institute – ‘Cost of Congestion’ – October 2004
is director of enterprise marketing at Vodafone UK. For further information: www.vodafone.co.uk/business or contact 08080 741741
