More and more businesses are adopting a strategy called workshifting to accelerate business growth, offer optimal customer service, attract and retain a productive workforce and ensure seamless business continuity. Workshifting enables the right employees to work at the right time and place, even if that’s not during standard business hours or in a traditional office.
Workshifting works for workers, enabling them more freedom than a 9 – 5 office routine. It also works for employers. They’re no longer restricted to local labor pools, and they can readily shift workers—virtually or physically—from one offi ce to another as needed, or move them closer to customers or project sites and also shift work amongst vendors. Organizations have found that workshifting can save them on facility, labor, and travel costs. They’re also learning that it dramatically increases their agility, as they can allocate skilled personnel to wherever they’re most needed—without the complications of a physical relocation.
The challenge for IT organizations is to meet corporate requirements for data protection and security while delivering desktops, applications, and online collaboration and support tools to virtual workers. In addition, IT must meet workers’ requirements: they demand high service levels and ease of use, and often insist on devices of their own choosing. IT must deliver high definition across a wide range of devices to help ensure high productivity for these workers—all the while keeping costs and complexity low.
This paper provides a simple guide with a checklist that focuses on four key workshifting requirements:
1. Productivity and performance, to help people work efficiently
2. Collaboration and support, to help people work with others and quickly resolve technical problems
3. Security, to protect the organizations’ data and intellectual property and adhere to compliance policies
4. Cost-efficiency, to lower IT costs and drive business costs down