Work Smarter, Not Harder – The Art of Flexible Working (Webinar Review)

This morning I watched a fantastic webinar on flexible working hosted by Claudia Hathaway of CallCentreFocus with Lynne Copp of The Worklife Company presenting.

With over 350 people attending it's clear that flexible working is a hot topic, and more than a buzzword for modern business. As Lynne started, "it's a business imperative, not a nice to have."

For many jobs you need to be at your place of work to do your work - perhaps you work in a factory, or a hospital. But for many of us in knowledge roles the need to go to a physical location has been a legacy requirement of on-premise technologies like a CRM system, or a call centre application.

In today's world Lynne believes "work is a thing that you do, not a place that you go" and from an employer's perspective "employment is not about geography but capabilities and values."

This is important for business, because instead of starting from your office location and working outwards when looking for the best talent, you can start with your customers and work outwards from them. Where are they? What do they want? When do they want it?

This customer focused approach to hiring and work scheduling drives your entire company's culture, ultimately resulting in better customer satisfaction and higher profitability.

As someone that works from home a couple of days a week myself, I was pleased to hear Lynne focus in on interruptions (or lack of them) as a huge benefit of home working. For me to do my best work I need to let ideas evolve and mutate in my head as I get closer to the solution to a particular problem. Emails, phone calls or a chat about the game last night all destroy this flow and either take me back to the start, or reduce the quality of the innovation.

Giving your employees the freedom to work from home when needed will give them this ability to think without interruptions and do their best work.

Many managers are worried about home working being a licence to watch day time TV, and slope off to the shops. But most people want to do great work, and add value to the business they work for. You have to trust your employees and if you don't, then maybe that calls into question your own recruitment process. "Don't manage the exception" adds Lynne.

Lynne provides many great examples of how to implement flexible working, whether that be reduced working, rearranged working, or a change of location. Technology is no longer a limiting factor. Whether it is using a cloud based email system, a cloud based CRM system, or a cloud based telephony system you can easily enable your team to work from anywhere.

For more information about Lynne Copp visit The Worklife Company website or follow her on Twitter.

To find out how NewVoiceMedia enables companies to offer home-working to their contact centre agents visit the ContactWorld page on our website.