Introduction

Teleworking affords employees, employers and society many benefits. What is teleworking? Put simply, teleworking uses technology to allow employees to work away from traditional office places. For instance this often refers to employees who work from home and may include people working part time or full time with flexible or standard hours. Telework often refers to a non-traditional work arrangement which leverages improvements in information and communication technologies such as virtual phone services. Easy Office Phone provides many virtual phone services that can benefit both businesses and employees when teleworking.

Here are some examples of telework:

• Home based employees work from home and completely eliminate their daily commute to the office
• Working from a satellite office
• Working from a virtual office on a pay per use basis
• Working from virtually anywhere using mobile communications technology

Benefits

Teleworking benefits employees, employers as well as society as a whole. Lets review some of these benefits:

• Cost Savings – The cost savings to both employees and employers can be substantial. Businesses can reduce their cost for office space and related work space costs. Employees benefit from reducing their commuting costs.
• Time Savings – There is no doubt that the savings gained by not having to commute to work is substantial. This time gained could benefit both the corporation and the employee.
• Opportunities for the Disabled – Employees with disabilities can benefit by being able to work from home where their needs are better addressed.
• Balance – Teleworking can afford employees more control over their working hours. This flexibility is especially important for working mothers and fathers.

Suggestions To Making It Work

• Separating Work Time From Personal Time – Because of the nature of telework it is often difficult to distinguish between working time and personal time. If employees working from home designate a room in their house as the office, this can help. It shouldn’t be a room that they regularly use, this way they have to make a choice to work and there is no mistaking that they are working when in that space. When it is a separate room, like a guest bedroom, the possibility of feeling compelled to work is reduced because you are less likely to run into work while doing something else. When the employee is in this room it sends a signal to those in the house that work is being done. Teleworkers should start and finish work at the same time each day and eat lunch and take breaks at scheduled times.
• Staff Interaction – Having meetings once or twice a week in a central location with other employees is recommended. Teleworking affords less interaction with other staff members and supervisors. This can make it difficult for employees to become acquainted with each other. Meeting with other employees on a regular basis will help with this.
• Hire The Right People – Not all employees will flourish in such situations where independence is required. The potential employee should have the resources to telework properly. Most importantly they need the desire, they also need the private space at home, a good quality computer, high speed internet, and an IP phone to connect to the companies hosted PBX telephone system. The expenses for these resources should be covered by the company. Lastly, they also need a clear and concise job description that includes goals and objectives with timely expectations.

Teleworking can take some time to get used to. In the end though, teleworking in full or in part can greatly increase the quality of life for you or your employees.

Have you heard this term? If so, you’ve probably wondered what exactly it means. Not to worry – today we’re going to explore the concept of a virtual office, how you might go about establishing one, and what benefits you and your business can derive from doing so.

First, the basics – what exactly is a virtual office, anyway? Well, as the name suggests, it’s not a physical place. Rather, a “virtual office” comprises a mix of technologies and services that enable entrepreneurs and business people to:

• Present a professional, polished image
• Stay constantly connected and avoid missed calls
• Reduce or even eliminate dependency on traditional office space
• Reduce or eliminate physical commuting
• Realize cost savings and a smaller environmental footprint thanks to the above

Easy Office Phone’s Hosted PBX technology allows you to achieve all of the above, while still saving money over traditional telecom options. Let’s take a look at each of these benefits of a virtual office and how our service can fulfill them.

Image: we all know how important image is. To help customers feel confident buying your products or services you need to present an image that depicts your company as established and credible. Here’s the catch – even the most solid, dependable companies in the world were small and unestablished when they first started. We all have to start somewhere.

With Easy Office Phone’s virtual office technology, you can deliver the right impression the moment your customers dial your phone number. With our customizable auto-attendant (also known as virtual receptionist) feature, your customers will immediately hear a polished automated greeting welcoming them to your company and presenting them with a list of options. You might choose to have several departments serving your customers, such as Sales, Support and Billing – even if all of those options go to just one or two people. Remember, it’s not misleading – you know your company will do a great job for its clients, but when you’re trying to get a foot in the door you’d better make sure the foot you’re putting forward is your best.

Connectivity: Our world is a fast-paced place in which to live and do business. Your customers are just as busy as you are; if they can’t reach you when they need your help, they’re likely to become frustrated and perhaps even move on to another supplier. As a result, you just can’t afford to miss calls due to outdated technology.

As part of your virtual office solution, consider find-me/follow me and voicemail to e-mail from Easy Office Phone. Both of these powerful features are included standard with our monthly service packages, and greatly increase your odds of getting those important calls. With find-me/follow-me, you can choose to call additional numbers (such as cell phones) when a caller dials your extension. Our service can dial these numbers either sequentially or simultaneously. Voicemail to e-mail provides you with further assurance – even if you do miss the initial call, we’ll immediately send you a digital recording of the voicemail message your customer left. You can download and listen to the message on a desktop or laptop computer, on your smartphone, or anywhere else that you have e-mail access. Complete your communications suite with our Electronic Fax service, which allows you to send faxes through the web and receive them via e-mail.

Office Space: If you’ve seen the amusing film from Mike Judge, you know that traditional offices can be overrated. Even if your red stapler isn’t missing, your job is still tied to the building you work in, meaning significantly increased operating costs. This can be a killer for startup businesses! Easy Office Phone can route your calls to you via a number of devices – a Business VoIP phone, a soft phone running on a computer, a smart phone or even a traditional landline. As a result, you can work from anywhere – your home, the road, a hotel – and still get all of your customer calls, without anyone realizing that you’re not sitting in a traditional office.

Commuting: We all dread it – and we envy those who don’t have to endure it. Why not beat the rat race and work from where you choose, as described above? When you’re able to work from the location of your choosing using Easy Office Phone, you can eliminate thousands of dollars a year in fuel costs, vehicle maintenance, licensing fees and parking tickets…not to mention the intangible cost of losing your sanity due to wasting time in traffic jams.

Environmental benefits: After setting up your virtual office, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve done your part for the Earth by significantly reducing your environmental footprint. Cutting out a few round trips to the office per week means greatly reducing your carbon footprint. Go even greener by getting rid of the need to run those fluorescent office lights eight hours a day, eliminating messages scrawled on memo pads, and doing away with those annoying fax machines!

That’s all for today. We hope this post answers the question of “what is a virtual office?” and demonstrates how you can use Easy Office Phone’s service to set up your own virtual office solution and start enjoying its benefits.

Think a phone number is just a phone number? Think again. If your new startup is thinking of launching in New York City there is something to be said for having a 212 area code phone number on your fancy new business cards.

Many business owners believe that seeing a 212 phone number show up on their call display confers immediate authority and respect. When new companies want to get off the ground quickly, every edge makes a difference. “Its all about status, its sort of like saying that you graduated from Harvard. Its that instant recognition that you are a player.”, says Henry an entrepreneur from Brooklyn.

Take a look at Foursquare’s co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, who is the brains behind the immensely popular location based social networking website. Naveen had a 646 area code cell phone number but when he learned that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey had a 212 phone number, he decided he had to have one as well.

Because the 212 area code is so old and many respected law firms and large companies have one, getting a 212 area code number can give people the impression that your company has been around a long time. “Its funny, it seems like companies are more likely to answer my calls when they see a 212 number on their call display” says Jodie.

The hard part is getting a 212 phone number as these numbers are in high demand and don’t come up very often. In fact most 212 numbers are obtained when a company goes out of business or cancels their 212 phone number with their telephone company. Normally these numbers are held for 60 days and then they are made available for new phone customers. Unfortunately they go quite quickly, but Easy Office Phone is offering a limited number of these premium phone numbers.

Many sellers on eBay are also offering 212 area code phone numbers which start at $45 per phone number as long as you don’t care about which particular number you get. Really great 212 area code numbers can cost much more, up to $1200 in some cases. If you are serious about your new company it is probably worth it.