Today’s workplace is quite different than it was a decade ago. Due to globalization, increased sophistication of digital technologies and more employees working remotely, modern workplace tools have evolved to cater to a changing landscape and support virtual collaboration among employees.
The concept of “a distributed workforce,” when a business employs workers in several locations or provides employees various telecommuting options, is becoming more than a popular workplace trend; it is showing to be a pivotal shift, transforming the way workers perform their jobs and interact with their employers, colleagues and clients.
According to a 2018 report, 70 percent of people globally work remotely at least once a week. Additionally, an Owl Labs “State of Remote Work 2019” report found that in the U.S., more than 40 percent of workers plan to work remotely more frequently in the future. This surging movement of a remote global workforce has made it critical for businesses to provide quality and secure voice services that foster real-time collaboration among their employees. Further, the longevity of this emerging business ecosystem relies heavily on enterprise adoption of quality global collaboration tools. In order to remain competitive in the global economy and recruit top talent with the promise of “workplace flexibility,” decision makers must utilize expansive and adaptable collaboration tools that provide employees with high-quality and clear voice calling capabilities.
One key aspect voice calling capabilities provide within the distributed workforce that other communication capabilities (i.e. text messaging or emailing) don’t is a more personalized experience. For employees who are working in various locations and may never meet each other face-to-face, having that ability to hear one’s voice and personalize an interaction is strengthened through voice calling or video conferencing. Calling can make these communications more impactful and intimate. And despite more workers working remotely, the connection and camaraderie among teams and colleagues are still vital, if not more so, as businesses strive to retain a workplace culture.
Outlined below are examples of emerging technologies that cater to the global collaboration movement and use voice calling features to power the modern workforce.
Enterprise Collaboration Apps:
2019 was the year of the booming adoption of global collaboration apps. Digital technologies like Microsoft Teams and Skype surged in popularity as more employees used these tools to virtually engage and work together in real-time. Such apps feature cloud-based calling capabilities which make collaboration more accessible to employees, regardless of location or network. These tools are also scalable and cost-effective for businesses, which directly impacts a company’s bottom line. These apps have also shown to help strengthen a company’s strategic growth into international markets by helping support a workforce that may have employees in various countries and time zones.
Web Real-Time Communications:
Another example of how market demand for collaboration tools are spearheading the revival of voice calling can be seen in Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC). WebRTC is an open protocol that enables web browsers to quickly set-up audio and video connections between two or more computers. This tool has gained significant momentum as the preferred method for creating a customized real-time communication experience in any web app. WebRTC also provides better call quality and enhanced audio for users, which can improve the collaboration experience among teams and help increase productivity (by effectively maintaining interactions instead of a conference call dropping repeatedly, cutting into employees’ time).
Intelligent Assistants:
Lastly, the resurgence of voice can also be tied to popular virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and or the Google Assistant. Due to the ease and convenience of these devices, many consumers and businesses are increasingly using virtual assistants for tasks like placing calls instead of using a smartphone, tablet or landline phone.
As more employees work remotely from their home office – or other locations – virtual assistants can play a larger role in powering employee collaboration through facilitating work calls. In addition, as businesses continue to adopt these intelligent tools, they will emerge as a viable alternative to traditional telephony devices.
Flowroute is dedicated to helping businesses in the “modern workplace” evolve their offerings to better meet and exceed the needs of their employees and customers. We are excited to provide businesses and cloud communication service providers (CPaaS) with agile tools that will help them drive innovation and collaboration for their customers.
In this next decade, we will continue to innovate ways decision makers can apply voice (and messaging) to improve their bottom lines.
