“If systems are set up properly, staff can have access to all the resources they have in the office
wherever they have an internet connection,” says Andy Poulton, e-business advisor at Business Link for
Berkshire and Wiltshire. “There are some very exciting developments which have enabled this.”
One is the availability of broadband everywhere, which now covers almost all of the country (BT
claims that, by July, 99.8% of its exchanges will be broadband enabled, with alternative plans in place for
even the most remote exchanges). “This is the enabler,” Poulton says.
Yet while broadband has come down in price too, those service providers targeting the business market
warn against consumer services masquerading (伪装) as business friendly broadband.
“Broadband is available for as little as £15 a month, but many businesses fail to appreciate the hidden
costs of such a service,” says Neil Stephenson, sales and marketing director at Onyx Internet, an internet
service provider based in the northeast of England. “Providers offering broadband for rock bottom prices are
notorious for poor service, with regular breakdowns and heavily congested ( 拥堵的) networks. It is always
advisable for businesses to look beyond the price tag and look for a business only provider that can offer
more reliability, with good support.” Such services don’t cost too much—quality services can be found for
upwards of £30 a month.
The benefits of broadband to the occasional home worker are that they can access email in real time,
and take full advantage of services such as internet based backup or even internet based phone services.
Internet based telecoms, or VoIP (Voice over IP) to give it its technical title, is an interesting tool to
any business supporting remote working. Not necessarily because of the promise of free or reduced price
phone calls (which experts point out is misleading for the average business), but because of the sophisticated
voice services that can be exploited by the remote worker—facilities such as voicemail and call forwarding,
which provide a continuity of the company image for customers and business partners.
By law, companies must “consider seriously” requests to work flexibly made by a parent with a child
under the age of six, or a disabled child under 18. It was the need to accommodate employees with young
children that motivated accountancy firm Wright Vigar to begin promoting teleworking recently. The
company, which needed to upgrade its IT infrastructure ( 基 础 设 施 ) to provide connectivity with a new,
second office, decided to introduce support for remote working at the same time.
Marketing director Jack O Hern explains that the company has a relatively young workforce, many of
whom are parents: “One of the triggers was when one of our tax managers returned from maternity leave.
She was intending to work part time, but could only manage one day a week in the office due to childcare.
By offering her the ability to work from home, we have doubled her capacity—now she works a day a week
from home, and a day in the office. This is great for her, and for us as we retain someone highly qualified.”
For Wright Vigar, which has now equipped all of its fee earners to be able to work at maximum
productivity when away from the offices (whether that’s from home, or while on the road), this strategy is
not just about saving on commute time or cutting them loose from the office, but enabling them to work
more flexible hours that fit around their home life.
O’Hern says: “Although most of our work is client-based and must fit around this, we can’t see any
reason why a parent can’t be on hand to deal with something important at home, if they have the ability to
complete a project later in the day.”
Supporting this new way of working came with a price, though. Although the firm was updating its
systems anyway, the company spent 10-15% more per user to equip them with a laptop rather than a PC, and
about the same to upgrade to a server that would enable remote staff to connect to the company networks and
access all their usual resources.
Although Wright Vigar hasn’t yet quantified the business benefits, it claims that, in addition to being