More of your employees are working remotely. They’re taking work home with them. They even manage to be productive when visiting client sites or commuting to work by bus or train. Today, a full 40% of U.S. employees no longer do the majority of their work in traditional office settings, with 55% of them saying they have to be mobile at least part of the time to do their jobs.
The reasons why are varied. Some point to the frenetic pace of business: to keep up, workers have to be “on” more of the time. Others point to the employee demand for greater flexibility, so they can achieve better work-life balance. Still, others say that mobile technology—the new smartphones, tablets and watches—has changed people’s expectations of what’s possible.
The good news for business owners: mobile employees tend to work more hours, and exhibit greater productivity than workers who are anchored to their desks.
The not-so-good news: many employers struggle to adequately support their mobile workers.
But here’s where another major trend—cloud computing—combines with the move toward mobility to create a perfect storm for small businesses. Although at first glance it might not seem obvious what cloud has to do with working while on the go; in fact, cloud is a key enabler of everything mobile.
Ubiquitous Access
The No. 1 resource mobile workers need is 24/7 access to all the applications—and, just as importantly, all the data—that they can access from the office. In fact, 81% of employees, at one point or another, need to access work documents while on the go. That includes business-critical tools that provide customer information, transaction processing status, inventory control and financial management, as well as the programs they work with, like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint plus calendaring and contact capabilities.
In the past, this kind of secure access was difficult, if not impossible. Today, with the increasing popularity of cloud-based applications like MicrosoftÒ Office 365, Salesforce, or Workday, employees can log in from anywhere with an Internet connection and access the same functionality and the same data they have from their desks. Even better, since the data resides in the cloud, it’s always up to date—no more emailing “snapshots” of data that become stale and inaccurate the minute after they’re sent.
Easy-to-use Tools
In addition to accessing documents for their own individual use, employees need to collaborate with colleagues on documents—either passing them back and forth securely or even working on the same document at the same time. Yet because their organizations haven’t provided them with official collaboration tools, 72% use unauthorized free file-sharing services that don’t work seamlessly together, aren’t secure and—what’s more—aren’t always as free as advertised.
There are a plethora of secure but easy-to-use cloud-based collaboration and file-sharing tools that allow employees to work together even when they’re not in close proximity to each other. The best-of-breed of these tools allows multiple employees to pass different versions of documents around, and work on the same document at the same time, without chaos ensuing.
Communication is Key
Meetings are a fact of business life, but everyone on the team isn’t always physically present for a face-to-face. Mobile workers demand to be able to communicate from the devices of their choice–from anywhere, at anytime. A full 67% of today’s workers say they need to access Web conferencing via their smartphones and another 57% say they need it on their tablets.
As with everything mobile, cloud is the answer. Cloud-based conferencing solutions like WebEx, GoToMeeting, and Microsoft Lync do all this, and more, providing instant messaging (IM, text), voice calls, and video conferencing to remote users, within a single tool. Because all this functionality is integrated, you just need to push a button or tap on an icon to access it—no need to add a plug in or to log in to another tool.
Safety First
As I mentioned before, security is a huge issue when it comes to mobility. And the task for businesses of all sizes is to embrace this step forward without exposing sensitive information.
For starters, there’s the very real risk of lost or stolen data. At least 1 million mobile devices are stolen in the United States every year. Of those people that had a device stolen, almost one in five said the device theft resulted in the loss of critical business data.
So what’s needed? A robust, cloud-based backup and storage system that regularly and automatically backs up all business data on workers’ devices. You can even find cloud applications that allow you to remotely “wipe” a device immediately after it is lost or stolen, so valuable data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Mobility + Cloud = Remote Productivity
Cloud and mobility. Two of the hottest trends in business computing today. And, as it turns out, there’s tremendous synergy between them. The ability to access data and applications stored in the cloud from anywhere, coupled with the latest in mobile devices is finally making it possible for remote workers to be as productive—even more so, than when in the office. What’s more, cloud-based solutions that support your mobile workers are typically much more cost-effective than traditional tools and applications. Productivity with cost savings–what’s not to like?
To learn more about how CenturyLink enables your business to be more mobile, visit www.centurylink.com/business/cloud.
