IT helps employees work from home
Tue, 15 Sep 2009
Small businesses can use modern IT to help overcome the barriers to home working, it has been reported.
Peter Gradwell, managing director of internet service provider Gradwell, claimed that working from home is becoming an increasingly popular option in the UK as more professionals seek to improve their work/life balance, reports Fresh Business Thinking.
However, he claimed that concerns about monitoring and assessing staff performance, providing reliable IT and ensuring a professional and consistent appearance can dissuade some firms from embracing smart working.
Internet-facilitated innovations such as business broadband, Voice-over Internet Protocol communication, video conferencing and hosted exchange provide solutions for the majority of concerns, Mr Gradwell added.
He stated: "The importance of a high-quality, fast internet connection cannot be underestimated.
"It is vital that home workers can access a professional, unrestricted connection with a quality of service guarantee to avoid downtime and prevent damage to customer relationships as a result of delayed communication."
Last month, Mark Seemann, product strategy and development director at Outsourcery, told Computer Weekly that the UK's copper line network needs to be replaced with fibre optic broadband technology as soon as possible
He said that many small firms continue to find their ambitions
"severely hampered" by an inability to access high-speed, low contention broadband.
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