The way we work has changed. This shouldn’t really be news to anybody. We’ve all come across people that work in another office or from home. Just because they are not present in the office doesn’t mean we don’t need to communicate and collaborate with them.
Often, the challenge for business to accommodate different types of users – mobile, remote, office, global – is that the technology underpinning this collaboration doesn’t (or didn’t in the past) enable this new way of working. With the gig economy common place in businesses all over the world, Fuze’s recent Workforce Futures report has uncovered some fascinating statistics. I caught up with Product Marketing Manager EMEA, Bradlee Allen, to run over some key findings and discuss his view on the how much the gig economy is impacting businesses and how to understand the boundaries between working in the office 9-5 and being a fully remote worker.
Working for the Workforce
Business leaders are finally coming around to accommodating for the way new people coming into business want and need to work. At Fuze, Bradlee says he sees that,
“Businesses are changing from working for the workforce to working for the business”.
Rather than needing to recruit people and place them in an office environment between restricted hours, Bradlee reflected on how businesses are built using a pool of resources from across the globe. Fuze are keen to play a key role in enabling this by helping business leaders – that grew up in a poor technology environment – by introducing simplicity to the workplace.
Flexible Working
Fuze’s Future Workforce report uncovered that 89% of employees wish to work flexibly. Flexible working means a lot of different things to different people. For some, this could mean working from home. For others it could mean a shift in working times.
For Bradlee, he can work flexibly by responding to colleagues in other regions whilst he takes his children to school. The ability to work any time, and on any device, empowers Bradlee to reply via instant messaging from his smart phone when he gets a chance in the morning. For more pressing matters, Bradlee often asks Siri to “call Eric using Fuze” and important conversations can take place in the car, rather than waiting to get into the office.
War for Talent
Winning the war for talent is hot topic at the moment. With Unified Comms vendors all keen to showcase their collaboration enablement, Bradlee spoke about his own experiences. “When I was looking for my next job, I was looking for a company that fulfilled my flexible working desires and the technology advancements I was after”. With Fuze clearly fulfilling those requirements, Bradlee is able to work on the move, and at times to suit his international colleagues as well as family life.
“When companies offer one day a week working from home, it’s laughable. People need to be allowed to work where they are productive and where it’s relevant to their role”.
This requirement is backed up further in Fuze’s report. Research showed that 75% of employees carry out work outside their contracted hours.
Finding the Happy Medium
Fuze are clearly focused on empowering the gig economy, and enabling flexible work. Bradlee also stressed how important it is to Fuze that everybody is different. “Technology in the workplace needs to be as simple and effective for every type of user”.
There is still a focus on working in the offices, and desk phones are not disappearing as fast as some marketing campaigns would suggest. In order to fully empower the gig economy and the workforce future, the devil really is in the detail.
For more stats and findings that Fuze uncovered, check out the Workforce Futures report.
