Good news for employees with hectic schedules! You are allowed to ask your boss for a flexible working programme to help give a better work life balance under a new legislation that came into play on June 30th 2014. You have to have been employed for longer than 26 weeks at the company you work for, and as long as your request isn’t a detriment to the business objectives then there should be no reason for your request to be declined. Of course, if you are business owner, then you will need to evaluate some of the long term changes this may have on your investment. A big example* that has been written about recently is the rise in telephony costs due to employees who now have to contact colleagues by calling their mobile numbers. It’s a problem that a lot of small businesses have not planned for long term, and certainly not something that would have been planned for when making the flexible work agreement with their employees.
So, what can we do about it? Well, in the telecoms industry, voice over IP (or VoIP as it’s more affectionately known) telephone systems are really beginning to gather huge momentum. Hosted in the cloud, these telephone systems put your business firmly in control of it telecoms, and one of the great features that exists is the Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC). This allows your employee to add their smartphone as a registered device on their personal extension. They can then make and receive calls from their own DDI as if they were sat in the office. All external calls would go through the phone system as normal, but all internal calls from other colleagues would be free, just like they normally would in the office! All that is needed is to download the app and you are away! VoIP systems can generally save you money on your phone bills anyway, but additional savings on calling colleagues on mobile networks is a great long term solution if you are thinking of granting your employees the flexibility you both need for a greater work life balance.
*Source: http://bit.ly/commsdealerarticle