Every company today has employees who in some way work remotely from the main office location. Remote workers are not just employees who work from home, but those who are based in field-sales, branch, or research and development offices which may be situated in different countries. 

The growing number of remote workers is being driven by organisations becoming increasingly global, with locations becoming more and more dispersed. Additionally, employees are aiming to improve their work/life balance by working from home while others are taking advantage of the government legislation extending the right to request flexible working to parents of children up to 16 years of age.

But businesses can also benefit from this shift in working patterns. By allowing employees to work remotely it's possible to make huge savings on expensive accommodation space and the associated running costs, all important factors in today’s tough environment.

Media coverage surrounding climate talks and summits, leading up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place in December of this year, is increasing awareness among businesses of all sizes of the need to operate in an environmentally manner. By enabling remote working, organisations are reducing the need for employees to travel to and from the office. Reduced business travel leads to reduced CO2. The ability to show that you are actively taking steps to reduce your business’ carbon footprint is important not only for your staff but is increasingly becoming a key marketing tool.

With an increasing number of mobile workers, more and more of us are facing the same issues around how to retain a team and corporate culture, keep everyone pointing in the same direction and working towards the same goals, within a dispersed workforce.

1. In-depth induction: to ensure that remote workers feel part of the ‘overall’ team and fit within an organisation’s ethos and culture, it's important that they completely understand how the company and all of its departments work. 

When a new employee starts they should be given an in depth induction, perhaps with a spell working, or at least spending time in every department, so that they meet people and understand what they do.

2. Tools for the job: you need to issue them with the appropriate tools, laptops, PCs, etc, whatever they need and ensure they all have sufficient bandwidth and an IT resource to call on if they need help with the occasional complications.

Think about deploying a standard configuration so that everyone’s PC or laptop runs the same software and applications and in order to keep desktops simple and secure, discourage employees from loading any non-company software or children’s games.

Remote workers and management need to clearly understand which company servers and folders can be accessed and the security implications surrounding this access.  

The major Challenge surrounding remote workers is ensuring that they are able to work as effectively and productively as if they were in the office. Remote workers must have access to business communications tools that enable them to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, team members, customers and suppliers.

3. Deploy instant messenger: great way to ensure that your remote workers keep in touch and connected to their colleagues is instant messenger. At MeetingZone we insist that all remote workers, and in fact all employees wherever they are, use instant messenger. This ensures that all of our staff work in a ‘pool’ of instant contact and everyone can see who is available. I’m not sure how we could manage our business effectively without this visibility and instant contact.

As a business communications tool, instant messenger plays an important role in providing remote workers with the visibility as to which of their colleagues are available to be contacted. You can even add video to the instant messenger mix, but in our experience it doesn’t justify the additional effort and complexity.

However, the key to ensuring that your remote workers can operate as effectively and productively as if they were office based is to provide them with business collaboration tools, such as audio and web conferencing solutions. These tools enable them to quickly and easily meet, communicate and collaborate with who they want, when they want, regardless of the location of any of the participants.

You will have already provided your remote worker with access to the simplest of all our communications tools, a telephone. The plain old telephone means that your remote worker is already equipped to hold an audio conference. 

But how many times do you attend a meeting without the need to share information, be it a presentation, a sales forecast, a contract or budget details, etc.  With access to a web conferencing application your remote workers can share information just as if they were all sitting around the same meeting room table.

To access a web conferencing application all your remote workers need is access to a PC or laptop and to the internet, and you will have already provided this accessibility.

Having understood the need to provide your remote workers with access to audio and web conferencing solutions, you must then decide how you will most cost effectively deliver them.

Most enterprise telephone systems enable conferencing capability, but there are limitations as to the number of participants and audio quality is sometimes an issue. Additionally there is the risk of tying up incoming and outgoing lines. You should look at the advantages of using a specialist audio conferencing provider.  A provider will issue a single dial in number to access the service and individual account holder PIN numbers. Participants to an audio conferencing simply dial into the service and enter the relevant account holder’s PIN number. Costs are usually based on a price per minute, per line.

There are a variety of web conferencing applications on the market today, but it is important to choose one that meets your business’ communications requirements i.e. the information you will need to share, will your usage warrant you having to buy software licenses, or taking out a subscription. Once again, you should look at partnering with a web conferencing service provider, preferably one that offers integrated audio and web conferencing.

With an integrated audio and web conferencing solution, a web conference session is quickly and easily added to an audio conference, by the host giving the participants his or her web conferencing URL. Participants access the relevant URL, enter a dynamic session code, and then all necessary information can be shared live over the internet. Web conferencing eliminates the need to e-mail meeting participants the documentation to be shared, or to continually ask if everyone is looking at the same slide or page. Again, the cost is based on price per minute.

Audio and web conferencing allows scheduled and perhaps, more importantly, ad hoc business meetings of all types to take place between your remote workers, without anyone having to leave their desks.

Business travel is reduced, helping to cut the associated hard costs i.e. train or plane tickets, hotel accommodation, etc. as well as the soft costs often overlooked – the unproductive dead time spent sitting in traffic jams, waiting in security lines at the airport, etc. Crucially, less cars on the road and less planes in the air play a big role in helping to reduce CO2 emissions.

However, it's important for your remote workers to have regular face-to-face contact with their managers, colleagues and team members so it's key that they have the option to come into the main office, whenever they want, for ‘traditional’ in person meetings.

Having given your remote workers a comprehensive induction to your company, issued them with the appropriate equipment and provided them with access to essential conferencing and collaboration tools, and set up regular contact programmess, you will not only be able to manage them effectively, but they will feel completely integrated within your business.

Your remote workers will have become an extremely valuable asset to your organisation. They will maintain and often exceed levels of productivity and efficiency and will therefore play a key role in helping your business survive the recession.