Mobile working is boosting productivity
Reading Time: 2 minutes26th July 2016 | Modified: 19th December 2022Categories: Web Connectivity
Mobile working is transforming how UK companies operate by significantly increasing efficiency and boosting staff productivity.
The increasing sophistication of smart devices and improvements to broadband connectivity have been supported by the emergence of tools like Microsoft Office 365 for working, sharing and collaborating remotely. Now a company’s employees can use all their standard office applications anywhere they work, just as if they were still in the office.
However, some companies in Sussex and across the South East remain reluctant to deploy mobile working solutions. Consequently, Microsoft has published a range of data drawn from a number of independent sources to persuade the doubters.
Two of the headline stats Microsoft highlights are that 77 per cent of workers say they are more productive when they are working out of the office and 23 per cent are willing to work more hours when they are away from the office.
Furthermore, 73 per cent of organisations who have adopted mobile workstyles say they have a more flexible, agile workforce. In addition, 53 per cent of organisations say they have lower travel costs and 48 per cent have lower property costs.
These statistics were gleaned from various research sources – including IDC, Accenture, Forrester Research and the Harvard Business Review.
All the data suggests that mobile working is rapidly gaining in popularity because it makes business sense.
Dramatic improvements
A company that doesn’t want to spend too much to start with can dip a toe in the water relatively cheaply by making its email system accessible to employees for a small monthly licence fee. This alone could dramatically improve productivity and efficiency.
Introducing mobile working solutions also ensures retention of customers and attracting the most talented staff. In the research Microsoft cites, 47 per cent of organisations believe mobile working helps attract the best talent and 29 per cent feel it helps to retain more customers.
Gary Jowett from Computer & Network Consultants in Brighton says: “Remote workers are estimated to produce 240 extra hours of work per year. This is one big reason to introduce new tools and applications that enable your company to take advantage of mobile working.”
There are two more statistics Microsoft cites that really put everything into perspective and should convince even the most reluctant organisations to employ mobile working solutions. By 2019 the number of mobile devices in the world will far outstrip the number of people who live on the planet because there will be an estimated 7.7 billion people in the world and 11.5 billion devices. Significantly, by 2020, 72 per cent of the US workforce will be mobile working.
Given that the UK is likely to follow trends in the US, now’s the time to prepare your business for a new mobile future.
