Many businesses were forced to embrace remote working during lockdown. Not only were small businesses affected but large corporations also had to equip their employees with home office tech such as a VoIP system. With working from home now being the new normal, the associated challenges presented themselves. While many home workers have been working from their home-based office for years, many businesses have had to adapt and overcome this challenge quickly. The way we work may have changed forever and we may never look back.
Through the pandemic, we all took important phone calls with children running around in the background or jumped onto Zoom calls in our pyjamas. Let’s take a look at some of the challenges we face with working from home and how we can address them.
Feeling Isolated
If you are used to being office-based, remote working will feel very different. The lack of social interaction from colleagues can often make working from home all week feel long and unfulfilled.
To help overcome this, you could try to plan social activities with friends and work colleagues outside of working hours to give you the social interaction that you miss. To help switch up your working week, you could also try working elsewhere on some days such as working in a coffee shop or a library.
Time Management
Working from home and creating your own schedule (if your job role allows) sounds like an absolute dream to most people but it can actually be a challenge. While your working hours may be a little more flexible, you will need to be disciplined. Without proper discipline, you are at risk of finding distractions that keep you away from the desk.
You can solve this issue by creating a schedule. We work best with routine, so decide on the business hours that work for you and make sure you stick to them. You may discover that standard office working hours (i.e. 9 am – 5 pm) works best for you or you may prefer to plan it more around your personal life.
Home Distractions
Distractions can seriously damage productivity that can take a while to get your focus back. Even the most motivated worker can get distracted while working from home. Living and working in the same space can cause disruptions. That pile of dirty laundry or television might easily start calling your name. You may also find yourself taking a longer break than intended because you got carried away with something.
To help reduce your distractions, you could try moving your home office into a quiet space away from electronics and where you can’t see your housework to-dos.
Lack of Communication
While working from home, you may find it difficult to retain connections with your team – especially if all you have is a landline number. A lack of communication between a team of workers can lead to important decisions being delayed due to not having access to complete information.
A solution to this is to have a platform for communicating with your other team members. For example, try creating a group chat or schedule regular video conferencing calls, so that you can discuss any issues or update each other on important developments.
Solutions for Remote Workers with Business VoIP Phone Systems
Unify your office and remote workers with one network solution by signing up for a virtual phone number for your small business. VoIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) is an internet-based telephone service. Rather than transmitting calls through a standard landline number or desk phone systems, virtual landline calls are routed through the internet. VoIP phone systems combine high-speed internet with a user-controlled software interface and provide remote workers with the features they are used to in their office. Take a look at free VoIP providers to improve your business.
Keep your existing business phone number by porting it into your virtual phone number provider. With your virtual landline, you can create a call management system that diverts calls to the right person every time. While a traditional landline is fixed and immovable, a virtual landline and VoIP phone system can be moved to wherever the worker is. Stay connected when and wherever you need with a virtual landline rather than where a traditional landline forces you to be.
Key Benefits of a Virtual Phone Number
Communication
With a VoIP phone system, staying connecting with your colleagues and customers has never been so easy. With your virtual landline, you can make internal calls to each other, as well as ensuring that someone is always available during business hours so that you never miss an important phone call again.
Call Stat Reports
Call stat reports on your virtual phone number are vital to running productive and effective small businesses with remote workers. With call stat reports, you can keep an eye on how your team is performing, see who may be overworking, or who is answering fewer calls, to see patterns in why this is happening.
Hardware & Apps
Provide your team with the tech that they prefer to use. VoIP systems can be used with a configured handset, headset, or mobile app, offering your remote workers the choice to work wherever they want as long as they have a reliable internet connection. Unlike a standard landline, a virtual landline phone number can be taken anywhere in the world.
Virtual Landline Phone Number
With your new virtual landline and business VoIP phone system, you can present as the number of your choice. For example, if you are based in London but want to have several local numbers around the UK, you can absolutely do this with a virtual number. For example, you can have a local virtual number for London, Manchester, and Edinburgh. By setting up a local virtual number, your business can build up trust and local presence in the most important areas.
Call Recording
Every small business is unique to the next, even those within the same industry. Call recording is a handy feature for any virtual phone system that can be used in a variety of ways. For example, you could benefit from call recording to use for training purposes or to solve disputes with your customers or within your own team.
Features of Virtual Phone Numbers
We have discussed some of the key benefits that a VoIP system could offer small businesses. Here are some of the features that are available to take advantage of with most virtual phone numbers:
Time of Day Routing – set calls to go through to particular users at set times of the day that can change as per your schedule.
Bespoke Opening Times – full control over when you will be available to take calls as well as a quick close option to close your lines when you need to.
Multiple Departments – allow your callers to listen to department options i.e. press #1 for sales so that you can identify each call and know how to greet them.
Music on Hold – select from a range of music and ringtone options for your callers to listen to while they wait in the queue.
Voicemail Email Alerts – your VoIP system comes equipped with a cloud-based voicemail box. If you choose to allow these alerts, you can access your voicemails through an audio clip that is sent straight to your email inbox, so you can pick them up on the go.
Which of the above working from home challenges have you found the toughest? Do share in a comment below.
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels
