Many of us know the pros and cons of working from home. Especially those who have young children or even possibly older children who had been undergoing the stresses of exams. Through these unprecedented times, telecommunication companies, such as ourselves, Active Digital, is considered an essential service provider. We take a huge amount of pride in knowing that our job is to ensure our customers the vital communication services for their business. Over the last month, we have been working hard to cope with the soaring demand of customer needs. We have been busy helping customers adapt to working from home. From broadband lines to mobile devices and Wi-Fi units – we are delivering it all. So, what have we learnt so far through these unusual times?
Outages Happen – Explaining is Key
We’ve seen a number of network outages over the years across all networks, but we had never seen anything like the challenges of COVID-19. We were both shocked and horrified to read that just a few weeks ago, a joint statement came out from all three of the UK major mobile networks to say that some of their masts had been deliberately damaged. All this at a time when communication is at its most critical. Particularly, when communications are needed for emergency services. Through all of these situations, what was most important was to keep our customers informed of how we manage their expectations. Being honest and factual with our customers is always what has been the most important. During the COVID-19 lockdown, we have been sending regular emails and updating our social media platforms to keep customers updated on our service delivery; every step of the way. Because, as the COVID19 statement goes, we are indeed #InItTogether.
Managing Data Demand
Managing demand on mobile data is hugely important for our customers. On that basis, we contacted many of clients who run large fleets of mobile users to ensure they had enough shared data to cope with the demand on a ‘work from home’ environment. Where necessary, we adapted customers data bundles to cope with demand; working hard to help them avoid any excessive charges during lockdown. It was important to Active Digital that customers had ‘headroom’ on data bundles through this period of change.
Maintaining Staff Numbers
More so than ever, it is important for our customers to know we continued to have a strong team on hand to cope with demand. That is why we have taken a lot of time, over the last two years to encourage more remote working. That means the majority of our team have been working from home. They have full access to their day to day work, files and documentation. For our team, it has been very much ‘business as usual’.
Ensuring we are meeting the same high customer service levels during this time of significant disruption is of key importance to us. Maintaining our commitment to despatch SIM cards and hardware to our customers on time. For it is what our customers expect from us. We have had some wonderful, kind messages from customers saying how grateful they are for delivering products for next day delivery in a time when technology is more important than ever.
Home Working can Work
As an organisation, Active Digital has always been an advocate of dynamic working. Many companies, who never considered remote work before, are doing it now. Remote employees are becoming the new norm for companies across the globe. According to research from Global Workplace Analytics, employees benefit from the flexibility and mix of environments that facilitate both collaboration in-office and stronger focus on tasks when remote.
So, what have we learnt? An important place to start is building trust. That means remote employees need to feel that they are trusted and empowered to be productive from wherever they are. It is important that organisations take the time to understand your remote employees’ unique needs and build connection and empathy.
We have seen plenty of benefits over the years from giving our employees more flexibility to work from home, including fewer distractions from the traditional workforce can contribute to higher efficiency, lower stress and boost morale. We have also seen some of our team uploading their own fitness workouts on our team feed for other team members to try. How brilliant is that!
On the flip side, remote working can contribute to feelings of isolation and disconnection. Therefore, it is vital that managers check in their teams, using Microsoft Teams, Zoom or similar on a daily or regular group chat.
And finally, like we have here at Active Digital, ensure that employees inside and outside of the office all have access to the same information, resources and communication. If they don’t, it can cause stress and worry as they can’t finish projects. If you need help and support on giving your team the right tools for the job, please do get in touch.
We’re here to help.
Contact us here –https://www.activedigital.co.uk/contact/
