Ending isolation when your workforce is dispersed

Toni Galo

March 12, 2021

Companies can cope with arising challenges linked to employee isolation more easily thanks to collaboration tools which help teams come together.

Both your employees and your business deserve a taste of normal. You might not be able to get together, use the company cantine to discuss various topics or share points of view, but thanks to real-time collaboration and communication - you can reunify your teams virtually.

Is the office from anywhere the new normal?

We have become used to the fact that for most of us our place of work isn’t the office anymore.

For many it took a pinch of creativity to setup home offices in living rooms, bedrooms, guest rooms or basements. This sudden switch did not only change how we perceive our home or how we do our work, but it also impacted our social habits. The way we communicate and socialize has changed drastically and to maintain a healthy social and a successful business life we must rely on technology.

The time has come to build strong “collaborative” foundations for today and for the future.

While the isolation conditioned our behavior and subjected even the most reluctant businesses to a forced migration to the cloud, the communication platforms used to do so, kept daily operations possible and helped us stay in touch with colleagues, partners and customers. Even though handshakes were replaced by high five smileys, most of the communication remained the same, even if at distance. Contrary to popular belief, we remained in high spirits and teamwork kept flourishing. Work was getting done, emails were getting sent, presentations held, customers called, products sold, and a year has passed. It worked out short-term, but if you want to stay successful in the future – enabling the work from anywhere and everywhere - here’s what to consider:

• High quality audio and video: make sure you use a platform which offers audio and video calls in high definition. Now that personal meetings are mostly out of question it’s more important than ever.

• Protect existing investments: use service providers who can guarantee you seamless integration of your existing private branch exchange (PBX) and PSTN capabilities. You don’t want to rip and replace your existing assets. Use providers who will integrate them into the cloud instead.

• Hybrid or cloud-based: discover the right deployment model for your business. If data security and integrity can be guaranteed (i.e. if the provider doesn’t underlie the ‘cloud act’ or the ‘patriot act’) you can go cloud-based as it’s usually more flexible with more flexible, subscription-based with no upfront costs. Hybrid gives you more stability and is great if already invested in on-premise hardware (such as a physical PBX) in the past.

• Seamless integration: you want to use leading platforms like Rainbow™ by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, which have the ability to integrate with your existing applications, such as client relationship management tools.

• Support: when something goes awry you need help right away. 24/7 support one point of contact and the ability to influence the product by suggesting improvements is what you are ideally looking for.

With Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, businesses get innovative functionalities and features for an effective communication and collaboration solution, without compromising on security, privacy, or data sovereignty. To prepare the work from anywhere and everywhere, Rainbow is the ideal solution.