Basic HTML Version
16
| p2p Magaz i ne | Late Summer 2012
01732 759725
...traditional
work practices
are all about
to undergo
a change of
Olympian
proportions.
REMOTE WORKING
Moving away
from the working norm
A survey of firms by the
Confederation of British
Industry showed that the
number of companies
offering at least some home
working rose from 14% in
2006 to 46% in 2008 and is
widely predicted to be still
on the increase.
Dealing with the Olympic gridlock
in London over the past few weeks
will have introduced remote and
home working to tens of thousands
of employees for the first time.
A CBI survey of more than 250 London
companies revealed that half of them
would instigate arrangements for
home working during the Olympics.
57 per cent also said that they were
planning flexible working hours for
employees and 46 per cent that they
would give staff time off to attend
events.
Gary David Smith the co-founder
of Prism Total IT Solutions (www.prism.
uk.com) whose company supplies
complete IT support to over 1000 SME’s
nationwide says that the ‘normal’ working
day, the daily commute and traditional
work practices are all about to undergo a
change of Olympian proportions.
“Many businesses have been forced
to investigate flexible working because of
the Olympics but they like what they see
and many will never return to traditional
methods again,” he said. “Home working
is more productive, greener and can save
companies money.”
British Telecom one of the pioneers of
home working in Britain has 15,000
home workers amongst their
92,000 staff. They report that they
have found home workers 20 per
cent more productive than office
based staff, less likely to take
days off due to illness and save
the company about £6K each
every year in business expenses.
Here, P2P takes a look at some of the most recent
product innovations designed to make home and mobile
workers more productive.
The mobile office
Over the last few years, Durable has extended
its range of competence to include the facility
management and office furniture sectors. The
company’s completely new SYSTEM range
of office furniture trolleys comprises
suspension file trolleys, mobile
PC desks, trolleys for overhead
projectors and beamers, as well as
multi-purpose trolleys.
The SYSTEM series
combines excellent
functionality with modern
design which won’t look out of
place in a home office environment.
Wherever mobile solutions are desired
for accommodating hot deskers or
organising work, the designer trolleys
will fit perfectly into any (office)
environment. Intelligent details in
product design, such as extra wide
opening angles or supporting horizontal
bars, enhance user-friendliness. For
example, the castors on all models are
extremely robust and provide reliable
service on all types of floor coverings, even on
wall-to-wall carpet. The trolleys can be assembled in a jiffy
and are ready for use immediately.
www.durable.de
Office labels go mobile
Office workers can now print labels
from their phones, tablets and laptops
without being hardwired to a label
printer, allowing improved flexibility
for fast paced working environments.
Brother has launched the first
WiFi-enabled label printers for offices
– the QL-710W and the QL-720NW.
In a technology first, the printers allow
workers to run off labels from almost any
device wirelessly, freeing up
label printing from being
tied to admin teams
and opening it up
for the whole
office.
The printers
can output
from Microsoft
Office programmes – includingWord,
Excel and Outlook – as well as Android
and iOS mobile operating systems.
They can be powered and controlled by
Brother’s new iPrint & Label app, which
works on most mobile devices including
the iPhone and iPad.
The new models can print almost
100 labels a minute and time can also
be saved with an auto-cutter function
for large volumes of single labels. The
feature-rich printers are less expensive
to run than competitor machines; the
cost of each printed label is up to 25 per
cent lower. The new printers also include
a range of pre-designed, professional
looking labels, which can be used to
create visitor badges, and labels for CDs,
QR codes and barcodes.
www.brother.co.uk/labelling
continued...