Remote Workers: Stay Connected with a Cloud Phone System

The number of remote workers rises every year. Instead of working a 9-5 shift in an office, employees prefer flexible schedules and the option to work remotely. Thanks to cloud computing technology, the remote working trend will continue to grow.

Remote Workers and Cloud Computing Technology

Over the last 20 years, cloud computing has transformed former on-premise technologies. These technologies include Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), Private Branch Exchange (PBX) and more. Nowadays, everything is in the cloud. Let’s take a moment to go over the basics of both remote work and cloud computing.

Remote work refers to a job that is performed outside of a central workspace. You will often hear people refer to this as “working from home.” Remote work can either be full-time, part-time (1-2 days a week) or for a designated period.

Remote workers have the ability to complete high-quality work in a relaxed environment. They can save money on the commute and enjoy working in a comfortable space. Remote work is also a great option for employees with pre-existing illnesses or disabilities.

Simply put, cloud computing refers to accessing and processing your data over the Internet rather than your hard drive or a local server. When Amazon released its Elastic Compute Cloud product in 2006, cloud computing soared in popularity.

Remote Worker Benefits: Why a Cloud Phone System is Key

Now, let’s explore why remote workers benefit from a cloud phone system. Firstly, it allows them to handle business from the comfort of their home. The quality of work remains the same, it’s just the location that’s different. With NUACOM Cloud Phone System, remote workers have the same caller ID, configuration, call flows, and process as they would in an office.  Cloud phone systems keep remote workers connected to their in-office coworkers. As a result, communication between these two parties is faster and more efficient. This is essential for quickly resolving customer inquiries and closing deals. In fact, a 2016 CareerBuilder survey polled 3,244 employees (ages 18+) and discovered 45% of workers completed work outside of office hours.  Business owners and managers also need a cloud phone system to manage their remote teams. The Remote Working & Personality Research report suggests that remote workers “need more stimulation and challenge than the average worker, but are less likely to ask for feedback or demand recognition.” Meaning, employers should give remote workers more challenging assignments, feedback, and positive recognition. A cloud phone system is perfect for tracking all of these things.

Remote Working Advantages and Disadvantages

Let’s look at some of the most common advantages and disadvantages of remote working:

Advantages for Remote Workers:

• Increased productivity
• Improved job satisfaction 
• Better work engagement 
• No time or money spent on commuting
• Ability to hire elite employees from anywhere in the world

Disadvantages for Remote Workers:

• Social isolation from in-office coworkers
• Feeling removed from the company’s “bigger picture”
• A decrease in employee visibility 

Disadvantages of remote working are unavoidable. Yet, research has shown that there are more positive outcomes than negative. In fact, some employers have even saved money on real estate costs and overhead expenses by employing a remote team.

Using a Cloud Phone System in Your Remote Work Office

The popularity of remote working is rising. As a result, managers must implement new methods to track a remote worker’s progress and the time spent on assignments. Luckily, NUACOM Cloud Phone System has a variety of features that will help employers keep track of workers working remotely. For instance, you can:

• use our IP phones and softphone apps to connect with your remote workers,
• use the Live Call Wallboard to view each worker’s live stats, 
• monitor your employees’ status, 
• export daily call reports. 

Below, we’ve listed three simple solutions that are beneficial to both employers and remote workers. All you need is NUACOM Cloud Phone System:

1. IP Phones and Softphone Apps

IP phones are a great way to communicate with employees working remotely. With NUACOM, users can easily access all their data and 50+ calling features using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). This allows remote workers to can make and receive calls from anywhere, as they would in an office.

To start, set up every remote worker with an IP Phone. Then, employers can start transferring calls between remote working teams. The IP phone also helps keep remote workers up-to-date with each caller’s information and connected to the in-office employees.

NUACOM has softphone apps for both desktop and mobile. The Desktop App allows you to handle calls directly from your PC. You can also classify your calls with tags, attach call notes, record your calls, and more.

With the Mobile app, you can listen to your call recordings, view your call logs, manage your contacts. You can also set your opening hours from your mobile phone.

Added Bonus: View which employees are set as available, unavailable, or busy.

2. Live Call Wallboard

NUACOM Live Call Wallboard displays all your live calls in a single interface. As a result, you can track all your inbound, outbound, queued, completed and abandoned calls directly from your User Portal. This is the perfect solution for managers and business owners that need to monitor their remote workers throughout the day.

The Live Call Wallboard also shows the total and average talk time for each agent. This helps employees prove to managers that they’ve met their daily quota while working from home.

Added Bonus: View the status of your workers by group. This includes which employees are online, offline, receiving a call, and on a call. 

3. Advanced Reporting

Manages can track a remote worker’s productivity by exporting the reports saved in their User Portal. To do this, locate the ‘Reports’ tab and access ‘Extensions Usage’ in the drop-down menu. Now, you can view the extension usage of each employee. You can also export reports per day, week, month and year. This will help you determine which remote workers are meeting organizational expectations.

The NUACOM User Portal also allows users to export their Queue Reports. This provides users with detailed information about their daily incoming calls. Here, remote workers can view their daily call stats, such as:

• The number of incoming calls
• Total call duration
• The average call duration
• The wait duration
• The average wait duration

Essentially, the daily call stats help remote workers track their progress. Added Bonus: Select a time frame and export your hourly, daily and monthly inbound calls.

Switch to NUACOM to get FREE Modern VoIP Phones for your team.