Now I might be showing my age a bit here, but remember when
Star Trek popularised the notion of beaming us places we wanted to go? It hasn’t quite happened in 2012, but
technology has managed to make us
materialise ourselves in different places in some form.
I have now been working from home for almost 3 years, when I
relocated to a small town in Victoria to support my husband’s new job, and we
both wanted to cut down the commute. Aside
from the obvious distractions that I learned very quickly to ignore (dust
bunnies and dishes in the sink) there were three main issues to overcome. Space, communication and support. Space was less of a “how much room” issue, as
a “headspace” issue - getting into the mindset of “I’m in the office now” and I
learned that routine was the key to that.
Get up, shower, dress, have breakfast then go to the office (i.e. the
back room).
The second key issue to the success of working from home is
communication. Initially when I started
working remotely, we had installed our Interactive Intelligence VoIP system,
which handles remote workers as well as if they were physically located in the main
office. I have a city phone number,
which when dialled checks to see if I’m marked as “in the office”. When I am, the system rings my home number
(or mobile, depending on how I’ve set it) and I click to take the call and the
connection is made. Similarly if I am
making a call, I put the number into the CIC client and it dials from the office,
displaying my phone number in Melbourne.
So that takes care of phone calls.
But communication, as we all know, is more than just being able to make
or take a phone call.
Once we acquired Accent Business Technology who are based in
NSW, 50% of our staff became “remote workers”.
Luckily for us, the NSW I.T. department were well versed in Microsoft Lync and installed this software on each of our desktops. Now, not only am I able to send off IMs to
staff to get quick answers to questions, I am also able to view a colleague’s
desktop when they have something to share, or share a whiteboard or
presentation to collaborate on a project a number of us are working on. Combined with webcam, Lync has become a
powerful tool for meetings and training sessions at CPS. The interesting thing I found on my last few trips
to the Melbourne office was that staff are using these same tools at their
physical desks in the office. People
aren’t getting up to walk around to others desks as much as they used to,
because the technology is such that we don’t have to!
The last issue to overcome was I.T. support, and again the
NSW office came to the party with their Evolution I.T. support expertise. The NSW office has been remotely supporting
many businesses’ I.T. infrastructure in the region for a number of years, and
once Evolution was deployed to my workstation, all software issues and upgrades
are handled remotely from either the VIC or NSW office, depending on who is
looking after the issue. If I have a
problem, I lodge a ticket via the web client, and within minutes, I get an
email from one of our help desk advising me of the next steps and often fixing
the problem immediately while remotely logged in to my PC. The evolution software has saved me from
making an emergency trip to Melbourne a number of times when issues have come
up with my laptop.
All this means that I remain in touch and am able to work as
productively as if I were physically in Melbourne. So, Scottie, while we’re not quite beaming
people up, we are able to materialise in their “space” and share ideas,
thoughts and comments instantaneously, so that physical location doesn’t matter
as much as it used to.
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