Efficient homeworking in 4 steps

Published on 06/09/2020 in Solutions & services

In order for employees to work at home as smoothly as at the office, it is important to stay connected in an efficient and secure way. It is best to focus on the following 4 steps: connectivity, network access, telephony and digital tools.

Efficient homeworking in 4 steps

1. Connectivity: Fixed internet connection at home

First of all, connectivity is the foundation for smooth teleworking. Employees must be able to work from home via a stable internet connection. You can support your employees financially by contributing to a fixed internet connection at home. This is an alternative form of remuneration that also has interesting tax benefits for you.

Packs for Employees

The program Packs for Employees makes it possible for you as an employer to contribute to the private internet subscription of your employees. Using MyProximus, you can add employees to the program at any time, ensuring that their professional activities continue without interruption. Packs for Employees is 100% tax deductible and approved by tax authorities and the National Social Security Office.

2. VPN: safe access to the company network

As soon as the connection is good, it is important that employees have remote access to the company network. A VPN network supports:

  • the exchange of data between teleworkers and the main office
  • centrally secured internet access for all sites
  • different applications (voice/data/video/cloud/e-payments, etc.) for interaction between employees, customers and suppliers

Secure private network Explore

Connect all your employees, buildings and objects using Explore. To ensure business continuity, the private network securely supports the following services:

  • Data transfer between your different sites
  • Data transfer between your different sites
  • Teleworking
  • Voice access for your employees, customers and suppliers via Business Trunking voice channels
After the health crisis, 6 out of 10 Belgians will want to telework at least 2 days a week.

Source: BDO, 22 April 2020

3. Telephony: Make and receive calls via your company number

Incoming calls do not have to go unanswered when employees work from home. Your employees can call and answer calls using the company number on their landline, mobile phone or laptop. This way they will not miss a single call.

Voice Managed Services (VMS)

Use VMS to manage the routing of your calls in the cloud with 3 options:

Voice continuity

Your landline is always available, on the road, when working from home and even in an emergency. The transfer takes place in the network, without on-site infrastructure or moving physical lines.

Smart routing

Smart routing allows you to manage all calls remotely with different services: recording calls, managing queues, configuring an automatic message, launching an information campaign abroad, activating temporary emergency numbers, planning emergency call routing,…

Contact center in the cloud

Calls are distributed to your call center operators who work from home. With a view of the statistics, operators and supervisors can anticipate the correct forwarding and adapt if necessary.

Fixed mobile Unification

Employees’ mobile phones and smartphones are cost-effectively integrated into your telephone exchange without additional Wi-Fi or DECT infrastructure. Easily control whether your employees are in private or professional mode. In professional mode, they can answer incoming calls remotely and make use of all the features of the IP telephone exchange. The company number is displayed in the case of outgoing calls. When the phone is in private mode, company calls are no longer received and the private number is displayed.

Enterprise Switch

If your business has no telephone exchange, you can make your landline mobile using Enterprise Switch. This makes it easy to switch between professional and private mode through a web application, for the entire fleet or individually via a mobile app.

Telephone exchange

Incoming and outgoing calls can be handled with an application on a smartphone or on a laptop. Linked applications allow you to make video calls, share the screen and share documents.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins reports that customers spent 5.5 trillion minutes in virtual meetings in one month due to the corona virus.

Source: cnbc.com, 2020

4. Collaborating digitally

When connectivity with your employees is assured, digital collaboration can begin. Creating the ideal digital workplace requires choosing the right tools and ensuring that your employees understand how they work.

  1. Stay connected from home
    … and above all do it securely. Working together, scheduling meetings, voice and video calls are all possible thanks to Cisco Webex. For more information on the use of this tool, we refer you to the webinar.
  2. Find all your team’s chats, meetings, files and apps in one place
    Everything in one place - things could hardly be more efficient. With Microsoft Teams your employees can chat, make video calls and collaborate on files thanks to the built-in Office 365 apps. This webinar will help you on your way.
  3. Fight an unplanned crisis with business continuity
    Security is a priority when working from home. Rainbow is a communication and collaboration platform that lets your employees telework from a safe location via the cloud.
  4. Digitize your daily documents and send them using the Proximus Docdrop platform
    During these exceptional times, it is not always possible to be in the office and to optimally maintain the mail going to your customers, partners or employees. Having scanned documents sent to the right recipient via Proximus Docdrop saves you considerable time and costs.
  5. Simplify your video communication across companies and platforms
    Mass teleworking also has a downside concerning video communication. Because of the many different video tools in circulation, starting up a meeting with a customer or supplier can go less smoothly. With Pexip you connect all your video conference technology with one solution, and can conduct a video call without having to adapt to the tool used by the other party in your digital session.

To give your company a boost in times of crisis, you can now take advantage of a number of temporary promotions and free licenses.

Discover the exceptional measures

Equip your homeworkers with quality tools

This makes working more pleasant, creates less distraction and makes them more productive.

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