Everyone wants to take personal time off around what we call Christmas, and other parts of the word describe as holidays. Regardless of religion there’s something a bit special about the end of one year and the beginning of the next, and in the northern hemisphere we’re used to the darkest coldest time of year – another reason many people might be less eager to commute to their usual office.
More often though managers have to deal with too many people wanting to spend time with family and friends around the same key dates, and for some teams this can create real scheduling headaches. But cloud-based UC can make all the difference, enabling more and more people to find the blended solution that’s right for them – getting the job done, but perhaps from a different location for a few weeks, while enjoying more time doing social activities.
Staying connected from anywhere
We spoke to Becky Linahon, Marketing Manager at TetraVX, about how versatile and scalable UCaaS is the key to enabling this kind of flexibility across the team, regardless of how and where they usually work:
“If you’re already fully cloud based then it’s easy. But with TetraVX, what we’ve been able to do is go to organizations that might not necessarily be completely committed to 100% cloud environment, who might have aging on-prem infrastructure that they’re still trying to leverage. We can integrate our cloud solutions with that on-prem so that you can have workers that need the remote work flexibility, while still engage some of that on premise infrastructure for those that might not”, she explained.
Being able to truly work from anywhere depends on a number of factors, including just how good Grandma’s wifi is under pressure – but the right provider support can help audit and manage services, to reduce dependence on high-bandwidth applications like video. And as faster connectivity spreads worldwide, it enables more and more of us to work effectively from any location.
The need to unplug
But just because we can, should we? In our always-on 24-7 culture, don’t we need to protect our downtime, especially during times of traditional celebration?
Linahon takes a reflective view, pointing out that new generations in the workplace have different expectations anyway: “The mobility changes that have happened in the past 10-20 years have forever changed the 9-5 working day, and it’s important that this stop people being able to take a badly needed total disconnect from work when they need to, while also enjoying the benefits of remote and flexible work”.
And in global organisations, cultural expectations and contractual provision for personal time off varies considerably anyway. Offices based in Europe might enjoy far more annual leave than those in Asia or the US, and adopting a flexible approach to remote working can help level the playing field across teams spread over different continents and cultures. For Linahon based in Chicago, US:
“…my colleague in London was shocked that I could only take 3 days off for a break. But, I could work remotely for the rest of the week and extend my vacation into the weekend, without it affecting anyone else”
As the world of work becomes ever more globalised, a decentralised cloud-based approach to communications means that colleagues can become more distributed too, and work the way that suits them best.
