Adopting WiFi and mobile technologies, more small- and medium-size businesses are implementing “workshifting,” which enables employees to work whenever and wherever they are most productive
For Jennifer Rallison, communication manager at Beaver Drilling, the shift to more flexible work practices at Canada’s largest privately owned drilling company has yielded both companywide and personal benefits.
“Becasue we have been around since 1965, in a conventional industry, it became a priority for us to embrace new technologies and ways of working,” she says. “We used to travel back and forth between our Calgary and Edmonton offices all the time for meetings. Now we’ve retrofitted our boardrooms with Skype facilities. We video-conference with our Edmonton office at least three times a week, saving us all that travel time.”
“As well I’m a mom with three young kids and the technology allows me to work at home with my laptop and WiFi connection,” she adds. “Our company recognizes the importance of balancing family and work. To have the flexibility to be in the office and at home makes a world of difference.”
Cutting the Cord
“Workshifting” is a term used when businesses make the move from legacy technologies, such as landline phones and hardwired Internet connections, to more nimble ones, including mobile devices and WiFi. They enable staff to shift the times and places they work, so they are more productive and happy.
“Workshifting is about people producing their most inspired work,” says Robyn Bews, executive director of WORKshift Canada, a Calgary-based consultancy that helps companies to adopt more flexible work practices.
“We actually led a piece of research last year that identified that 53 per cent of employed Canadians report they are more productive outside traditional work hours. This means we have the tragedy of smart people sitting in traffic in what might be their most productive time of day.”
They may work better from home, in a local coffee shop, or even in different spaces within their workplace, away from their desks. Statistics show that, globally, 85 per cent of businesses offer some form of workshifting. Even so, Canada lags behind. Research by BMO Financial claims that only 23 per cent of employers here offer staff telecommuting – 47 per cent of larger employers and only 22 per cent of small.
Millennials Will Change Things Up
However, these numbers may be poised to change, especially as young people enter the workforce, glued to their mobile devices and connected to their social networks. “The concept of the virtual office will gain momentum as more millennials join the workplace,” says Ron McKenzie, vice president, business at Shaw Communications.
He points out that the young people are used to working and keeping connected to their social networks at the same time. Employers have the best chance to attract and retain the talent if they cater to this new workflow throughout the day, both during and outside traditional work hours.
“When you think about that user behaviour,” he says, “you have to ensure that you have an infrastructure that caters to it, regardless of whether people are inside or outside the office. You also need to ensure that you have a secure and available solution to support the new workflow.”
Small Businesses Go into the Cloud
The challenge for small businesses is that they usually do not have the IT department or knowledge to deploy a robust WiFi solution. “But with managed, cloud-based solutions, like our SmartWiFi, SmartSecurity and SmartVoice,” says Mr. McKenzie, “everything a large enterprise has in terms of cloud-based, real-time service is now available to a small business.”
With a robust suite of solutions, small- and medium-size businesses can confidently adopt technological solutions that are easily managed through cloud-based dashboards. They free businesses to explore workshifting practices that can dramatically improve staff morale and their bottom line.
Recognizing, for example, that employees spend most of the time away from their desks in a wireless office, companies can restructure and reduce their office space, catering to new ways of working while saving real estate costs.
For her part, Ms. Rallison at Beaver Drilling appreciates the flexibility of real-time communications, replacing mailed communications to rig workers, and some site visits, with instant iPad connections. “We can FaceTime managers when something is broken on the rig,” she says. “We don’t have to send somebody out into the field if it’s a minor thing. We can talk them through the problem in real time and they can quickly send us pictures.”
She adds: “We’re a 24/7 operation. Having the ability to communicate with our larger team any time, any place, has made a huge difference for us.”
This branded content article ran in an October 2017 issue of the Globe and Mail newspaper.