If you want to successfully work from home, you need to make sure you have the all the same equipment, apps, and logins you have in the office – there are few things more frustrating than spending half the day trying get things up and running, and constantly phoning IT to make sure you have the right logins.
So once you’ve got the work laptop sorted and the VPN, here are some essential work from home apps to make your work from home life even easier…
We all want our employees to be as productive as possible, and finding the right work/life balance can be key to keeping employees happy – and happy employees are generally more productive.
The trouble is, finding the right work/life balance can be tricky – while having the option of working from home will be enough for some, remote working doesn’t agree with everyone, even though advances in mobile technology mean that working from anywhere is easier than ever before.
So, how can you improve the work/life balance of your employees?
Global warming could be a more pressing problem than initially thought. A long-term forecasts from the Met Office have revealed that temperatures could temporarily reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time between now and 2023 – levels we weren’t expected to reach until between 2030 and 2052.
It’s a problem we all need to tackle, and here’s how conference calling can help fight climate.
There are loads of positives to freelancing and working remotely, not least that you can fit your work schedule around other priorities in life – doing away with the nine-to-five means freelancing can be particularly good for parents, who have to factor school runs and childcare into the working day.
A study from Kalido, a professional networking app, has found that as many as half (50%) of all workers are expected to turn freelance in the next two years. It also found that almost two-thirds (64%) of UK-based businesses currently rely on freelance workers in some capacity; and over a third (39%) of business owners predict that their use of freelancers will grow faster than their number of permanent hires in the next five years.
On the face of it, this is great for everyone’s life/work balance, but there’s evidence to suggest that a growth in remote working could lead to an increase in mental health issues, particularly for those who work alone at home.
If you’re a new parent, or you’ve ever had to juggle a job with a baby or a toddler, you’ll know just how much of a hassle it can be.
If you’ve ever worked freelance, had last-minute jobs land on your lap and chase clients for payments, you’ll know how much hassle that can be too.
If you’ve ever done both, it may have surprised you to learn that both can work perfectly together.
If you work in an office, you’ll no doubt have your daily routine nailed down – maybe make a cuppa to take to your desk, fire up your computer, then check your emails to both ease yourself into, and set your priorities for, the working day ahead.
The chances are you’ll also work in an open plan office, where all colleagues can easily communicate with each other across the room – this is all part of the evolving office work-space, and things were very different as little as 20 years ago.
Let’s take a quick look at how we arrived at the modern day office, and what sort of working environment might lie ahead for office workers of the future…
It’s hard to believe it been over three years since the UK’s new flexible working regulations came into force and now all employers will have to seriously consider their flexible working practices – it has to be right for both the employer and the employee.
With so many variables involved though, things can quickly get complicated.
So if you’re an employer or an employee considering the options, it’s a good idea to break flexible working down into two components – ‘flexi-time’ and ‘telecommute’.
Updated Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Working from home is more popular than ever in the UK, but it’s not for everyone and massive companies such as Yahoo and HP have taken the decision to reduce or even cut out flexible working completely.
The trouble is, employees have come to expect flexible working, which means it can be a cause of conflict if a request is turned down, particularly in light of the change to UK legislation introduced in 2015.
So how exactly do you tell your employees they can’t work from home?
Remote working is on the rise – the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 13.7% of the UK workforce now undertake some working from home – but why is this?
The UK is a pretty unstable place right now – as we outlined in our last blog, the snap general election, and the ongoing confusion over any Brexit deal means…