What is the future of our workforce?
Will the ability to work from anywhere change businesses forever?
From broadband to mobile data and tablets to smartphones, technological advances have changed how we communicate. Having the choice between interacting through the web, email, phone or in-person means we expect quicker responses, and when it comes to working, the days of deskbound 9 to 5 working has gone.
Indeed, for a lot of companies, employees are required to work from anywhere, anytime and for the others, they are often keen on embracing a more flexible approach.
Almost one in five UK employers now operate some form of hot-desking because staff are so infrequently in the office.
Imagine no commute, fitting work around childcare or eating your lunch at home with the dog before visiting the park to finish the management report.
The ability to use mobile technology to work remotely is a powerful motivator for staff.
Using a smartphone and connecting your laptop through it enables even the most basic hotel room or service station to become a fully functioning office.
Mobility has become synonymous with productivity both inside and outside the workplace, and the mass adoption of mobile technology has cultivated an environment where workers expect to leverage mobile technology at work.
Providing for the needs of these mobile workers is key. It is not that long ago that the most advanced technology a person would use would be in their office. Now many employees will have a better phone, tablet and laptop than those provided by their company.
That can have its problems. Businesses must either keep up by offering the latest work devices or offer secure and stable digital platforms to allow staff to work effectively anywhere on their own devices.
Planning and innovation with things like recording mobile phone calls and integrating mobile and fixed-line telephony negate the snags of remote working, from the security concerns to the worry that employees will be out of sight, out of mind.
The cost savings and productivity rewards are compelling enough to drive even more businesses to create a more mobile workforce.