The rise of remote working since the start of the pandemic has led to a number of challenges for businesses.

Fortunately, the advancement of voice over cloud, or VoIP (Voice-over-internet protocol) technology has made working from home a lot easier.

While there are many benefits to homeworking, for both employers and staff, there are several communication challenges that need to be overcome for it to permanently replace office-based work and be a success. Obviously, businesses are having to respond to the current global situation in which working from home has been enforced in a lot of industries, but will things go ‘back to normal’ once the pandemic is over? Either way, VoIP technology provides robust, high-performance communications that enable employers to get the best out of their homeworking employees, as well as providing the staff with management and business insight capabilities that would other be sacrificed through remote working.

The misconception from businesses who have reservations of their employees working from home is poor productivity, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a wide range of software devoted to the purpose of controlling remote resources. One of these is known as “VoIP.”

What is VoIP?

Simply put, it’s a telecommunications software that allows someone to make online phone calls, as well as provide employees with a plethora of features such as instant messaging, CRM integrations and call queuing. VoIP is a quickly evolving technology that helps people communicate in ways they never thought possible.

Here are the advantages of VoIP for home working:

From a business point of view: VoIP allows the business to keep employees on track with various management tools to coach and manage the workforce. Additionally, office overheads, such as furniture and desk space, are reduced, as well as sick days, when employees can work at any location. VoIP also promotes employee collaboration and access, improving business efficiencies, and gives the business more growth potential due to the scalability associated with being able to easily add more people to the business with minimal costs.

From an employee point of view: As more and more of the workload gets digitised, working from home has never been more appealing. Add to that, people have been forced to set up a remote working environment at home, so employees want to know how to work better remotely. According to Steelcase, switching to a VoIP phone system can save up to 32 minutes per day per employee. So productively levels improve. Why? Partly because it gives employees a break from the stress of the office, and partly because with technologies like VoIP they can work more efficiently. Additionally, working from home saves employees lengthy and costly commutes, they can join meetings without physically needing to be there, and can record calls for future reference.

VoIP: What do home workers need?

If VoIP sounds like the solution for your home workers, here are some of the features you should be looking for:

Flexibility: Voice of cloud telephony provides greater flexibility and features at a reduced cost to traditional telephony.
Call queuing: Put customers on hold so you’ll never miss a call.
Voicemail: Record missed calls and email notifications of the audio file.
CRM integration: Update contact records in real-time.
Call forwarding: Redirect calls between a cloud phone and devices.
Management tools: Call monitoring for quality control and call coaching for call improvements.
With working from home providing numerous benefits for businesses, introducing VoIP technology can help to keep employees happy and productive.

Here are the key advantages of VoIP:

Easier remote working: All employees need is an internet connection to access calls, join meetings, provide updates and ask questions, as if they were in the office. Cloud technology makes the management of VoIP easy as networks and software are all managed in the cloud – no more flash drives and storage devices needed.
Empowers employees: The modern employee isn’t chained to their office desk. Being able to work from the mobile device and personal computer is made possible through VoIP, so no compromises need to be made when working on the move or from the comfort of their own home. Productivity is also improved as employees can pick up where they left off on any device.
Happy staff: The happier your workforce, the more productive they’ll be. VoIP not only allows the option to successfully work from home, but makes it a long-term, viable strategy moving forward – which employees love. Nobody likes costly, stressful and lengthy commutes so having the option to work from home is a game-changer for a lot of people.
Business agility: Employers can hire workers based on their immediate needs, without having to worry about costly IT overheads or extra office space. The hiring of freelance staff is also made easier with VoIP. That opens the gate to a wider pool of candidates and the ability to scale at ease.
Making VoIP a strategic asset

VoIP may one day replace traditional telephony. For those who implement it now, they’ll be benefiting from streamlined processes, happier staff, greater productivity and, therefore, a better bottom line.

Implementing VoIP isn’t a lengthy process either, and it needn’t be costly. Quick wins include reducing IT spend, unifying disconnected systems in the cloud, relieving the maintenance burden on your team, improving security, and the quick set up on devices.