With all of the technological advancements in today’s workplace, more and more businesses are discovering the ease and benefits with allowing employees to telecommute.
Those technologies include teleconferencing, remote Internet connections, VoIP and advancements that make it possible for workers to be as productive from home or another location as they would be in the office.
A recent survey by Cisco (News - Alert) revealed that respondents who were able to work remotely experienced significant work-life flexibility, productivity and overall satisfaction increases.
Eighty percent of the survey respondents said telecommuting allowed them to have an improved quality of life while 91 percent said the ability to telecommute is somewhat or very important to their overall satisfaction.
Using technology to connect workers located at home or another location than the office not only improves their work-life experience but also helps companies save on costs and reduce carbon emissions.
Cisco’s survey found that employees were able to save of $10.3 million per year in fuel costs thanks to telecommuting.
For crucial business meetings, teleconferencing is one way for those located throughout the world to have audio or video calls with contacts instead of traveling to a dedicated location to conduct the meeting.
Also with telecommuting, 83 percent of employees said they are able to communicate and collaborate the same, or better than if they were on site.
"In the age of a global market, time and distance separates people and workspaces. Cisco has long recognized that telecommuting and collaborative technologies are effective in breaking down separation barriers and enabling the transition to the borderless enterprise. In addition, as demonstrated by our recent study, a properly executed program for telecommuting can be extremely effective at unlocking employee potential by increasing work-life balance, productivity and overall satisfaction," said Rami Mazid, vice president, Global Client Services and Operations, Cisco.
Another recent study from Wainhouse (News - Alert) Research, “Rich Media Conferencing – 2009 Volume 2: Enterprise Videoconferencing Endpoints and Infrastructure,” has uncovered that the video conferencing equipment market should recover in 2010.
A Synergy (News - Alert) Research Group study also shows conferencing revenues actually grew seven percent in the first quarter sequentially – even as every other UC application experienced a sales decline.
According to the firm's findings, conferencing application sales grew at a 5 percent rate in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the worldwide market for collaborative applications in the first quarter of 2009 amounted to $913.3 million in sales.
Eagle teleconferencing, a provider of conference call solutions that meet the needs of today’s competitive business environments, helps users to get the most out of their meetings and offers a worldwide network connection infrastructure, a capacity of more than 10 billion minutes and a variety of conference call options for productivity and reliability.
For more, check out the Conference Call channel on TMCnet.
Stefania Viscusi is an assignment editor for TMCnet, covering VoIP, CRM, call center and wireless technologies. To read more of Stefania’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Michael Dinan