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Skype reports new trends in remote working
Video calling is the technology which is likely to see the biggest gains in office use next year, according to a Skype survey.
Video calling is the technology which is likely to see the biggest gains in office use next year, according to a Skype survey.
The survey of 1,000 workers in the US is part of the Living Workplace report which suggests email and landline phone usage are on the decline and are being replaced by IM, social media and texting as well as other technology. It shows remote flexible working is on the rise. Around two thirds of those polled said it helped with recruitment and retention of effective staff.
The report says the adoption of new technologies in the workplace has come from employees themselves who have adapted their own personal technologies in the workplace.
The report states: "The advent of the Internet and various technologies described in this paper are changing the way people work. This impacts not only the workers themselves but also entire businesses, which can easily extend their search for talent globally as well as use technology-enabled processes to conduct operations effectively and empower workers across the enterprise."
It says social networks, mobile phones and video communications are still evolving and have yet to hit maturity and anticipates that progress will continue to be driven by employees using their personal technology at work. As these technologies progress, we anticipate this consumerization of corporate IT to continue. It says "vendors should realise that first and foremost, businesses are a collection of individuals. As businesses increasingly become collections of geographically dispersed individuals, a focus on making the individual (consumer) more productive will likely yield better products".
It calls on business IT departments to take account of new work styles, changing attitudes and the behaviour of new workers. "They have to be more open and flexible with their policies and allow workers to use technologies that help execute tasks. As the line between consumer- and business-oriented technologies blurs, IT departments have to become more accepting of consumer technologies," it says.
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