I hope everyone is having a productive first day of 2012′s “Anywhere Working Week”!
Anywhere Working is a group initiative whose aim is to show how remote working can benefit ourselves and our environment, increasing our productivity and wellbeing and saving us time and money, and is encouraging as many people as possible to explore their options for working away from the office this week. Readers of this blog will know that remote working and the myriad ways in which technology is changing the face of our workplace are one of our passions at Company Net, so we’re pleased to be able to get on board and spread the word.
There’s plenty of good information on the site, including a really useful calculator which works out how much time, money and CO2 you could save per week, month and year, depending on how often you might commit to working from home. Having the figures in front of you certainly makes for a compelling case, and I was suprised to learn how much CO2 in particular I could save just by commuting one day fewer per week.
The Anywhere Working Consortium is supported by a number of organisations, including Microsoft, Vodafone, Nokia, Transport for London, Nuffield Health and Business In the Community. As a Microsoft Partner, we’re not at all surprised to see Microsoft involved with the initiative – Microsoft’s Office 365 is what we at Company Net use to stay connected and securely access and collaborate on all of our documents via the cloud, allowing us to move seamlessly from working in the office to offsite. We’ve had a fantastic experience using this technology and we’re happy to be able to offer our expertise to allow others to see the advantages Office 365 can bring to your business. As active users ourselves, we’re ideally placed to talk you through any questions you may have. Please feel free to get in touch at contactus@company-net.com or on 0131 5597500 for further info.
“It’s no longer viable for businesses to stick to rigid, inefficient ways of working if they want to compete successfully in the market,” Gordon Frazer, Managing Director at Microsoft UK.
The Anywhere Working site also features plenty of really interesting case studies, from the likes of EDF Energy, the Open University, BAA Heathrow, MacRoberts LLP and the London Symphony Orchestra to help you explore the implications and impact for your business.
So where’s your favourite place to work, for days when you’re not in the office? I’m lucky enough to live in the centre of Edinburgh, so I’m surrounded by places with wi-fi to stroll out to if working at home becomes lonely, but for me it’s a toss up – the focused peace and quiet of my kitchen table, or the sociability and ready availability of all those sustaining lattes in my favourite cafe… I think I’d have to choose a little bit of both!
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Will you be working remotely for Anywhere Working Week? Have you been surprised by how much time and money you could save by commuting one day less a week, and is this a commitment you’re thinking of making? And do you have all the technologies you need to stay connected already in place?
Let us know what you think and any experiences you have of Anywhere Working this week, and let’s see if we can get some discussion going!