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Tag: remote working

  • Supercharge Your Small Business with These Digital Essentials

    Supercharge Your Small Business with These Digital Essentials

    In today’s digital era, small businesses must harness the power of technology to remain competitive and efficient. The right digital tools can significantly enhance various aspects of your business, from improving customer engagement to streamlining operations. As technology evolves, small business owners have unprecedented opportunities to leverage these advancements for growth. By integrating innovative solutions, businesses can meet current demands and anticipate future trends, ensuring they remain at the forefront of their industries.

    Elevate Your Web Projects with a Web Development Degree

    Pursuing a degree in web development can significantly boost your ability to manage and expand digital projects. This structured educational path deepens into cutting-edge technologies and design principles essential for crafting innovative web solutions. Not only does this formal education enhance your technical skills, but it also opens doors to higher-paying roles. Pairing your degree with certification programs related to CompTIA can further enhance your versatility and competitiveness in the job market, equipping you to navigate the ever-changing digital landscape effectively.

    Leverage AI and ML for Small Business Growth

    In today’s competitive market, integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into customer relationship management systems is crucial for enhancing customer interactions. By utilizing AI and ML, you can analyze customer data in real-time, gaining predictive insights that help anticipate customer needs with precision. This automates routine tasks and personalized interactions, boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Embracing these technologies is not just an upgrade but a necessary evolution for thriving in today’s dynamic business environment.

    Build Trust with Secure Payment Solutions

    Establishing trust with your customers is essential in the digital marketplace, and a secure payment gateway plays a pivotal role in this process. By selecting a gateway that adheres to industry standards like PCI DSS, you can protect sensitive customer data and minimize fraud risks. This shields your business and reassures customers, many of whom look for security indicators during checkout. Partnering with well-known providers can further enhance your credibility, allowing you to focus on growing your business while offering customers a safe and efficient shopping experience.

    Use AI for Enhanced Project Management

    Recognizing the transformative potential of AI and machine learning in project management is crucial for small business owners. These technologies are set to redefine how projects are executed by automating routine tasks and providing predictive insights. For example, AI can streamline the creation of status reports, allowing you to dedicate more time to strategic planning. By integrating these advancements, your business can significantly enhance project delivery and overall success.

    Seek Customer Feedback for Business Growth

    Effectively utilizing customer feedback tools can give your small business a competitive edge. Engaging with your customers allows you to uncover valuable insights into their preferences and demands, enabling you to innovate and refine your offerings. By integrating feedback into your business strategy, you can ensure your products and services align with current market needs, ultimately positioning your business for long-term success.

    Harness Finance Automation for Small Business Growth

    Integrating finance automation into your small business can revolutionize your operations by streamlining tasks like data entry and bookkeeping. By automating these processes, you not only save time but also reduce the risk of human errors, which can lead to financial discrepancies. This technology ensures that accounts payable and receivable are handled accurately, preserving the integrity of your financial records. Embracing automation in your financial operations can transform your business, enabling you to allocate resources more effectively and drive success.

    Improve Remote Work with Cloud Storage

    In the modern business landscape, cloud storage is a crucial tool for boosting the efficiency of remote work. Enabling access to files and documents from virtually any location eliminates the need for a shared physical office, fostering seamless collaboration among team members. This technology allows your team to edit, track changes, and provide feedback in real-time, ensuring everyone is on the same page. By integrating with various digital applications, cloud storage streamlines workflows and offers a new perspective on team collaboration.

    Using the right digital tools isn’t just about staying updated with technology—it’s about positioning your business for long-term success. Integrating these solutions can streamline daily operations, strengthen customer relationships, and create a more agile workflow. With the right tech, you’ll reduce inefficiencies, improve decision-making, and stay ahead of industry shifts. As digital trends evolve, adaptability becomes a key factor in sustained growth. Embracing innovation today means securing a stronger, more competitive business for the future.

    Discover how NTELogic can transform your business with cutting-edge technology solutions—visit NTELogic today to elevate your IT strategy and secure your success!

  • Building, Onboarding, and Managing Remote Teams

    Is your business implementing a hybrid or fully remote work model for the first time? Wondering how to successfully onboard and manage work-from-home employees without impacting workplace productivity, collaboration, or culture? With the right tools and processes, managing remote teams effectively is possible. Here’s an overview of what companies who are shifting to a hybrid or fully remote work model are doing to build, onboard, and manage remote teams.

    Tips for Building and Onboarding Remote Teams

    When building a remote team, you can focus on hiring based on skills, expertise, and culture fit rather than location. This gives your company a wider pool of applicants to draw from and makes it easier to create a dream team for your company.

    To build and onboard a remote team, you’ll need the right people, processes, and tools to make it work.

    • Designate HR staff to focus on hiring and training remote employees. The work experience is different when you’re working from wherever, so it’s important to have someone who understands how to engage, teach, guide, and provide support for remote workers.
    • Set expectations from the beginning. Establish the rules for work hours, specific times remote employees should make themselves available online, and time tracking from the beginning.
    • Create clear processes around communication – what channels should they use for collaboration, one-on-one meetings, and work questions? Who should they connect with for different types of communication and group work?
    • Empower your remote teams with easy-to-use and full-featured communications solutions that integrate with your business applications. As a lot of work happens through technology, it’s important to use platforms that enable productivity and minimize frustration. The essentials for keeping remote teams connected include unified communications, video conferencing software, and cloud phones.

    Tips for Managing Remote Teams Successfully

    Because your remote employees aren’t in the office, it can feel like you have less insight into how they spend their time, making management difficult. The reality is, working from wherever doesn’t have to impact productivity. With a smart, practical approach, you can still bring the best out of your employees. Here are a few tips to help you manage your remote employees:

    • Set up regular meetings. With remote teams, it’s more important to be proactive about meeting with your staff. Whether you do quick, one-on-one check-ins every morning or a weekly meeting with small groups, making face-to-face interactions part of the routine helps to keep everyone engaged.
    • Be upfront about work goals. Set benchmarks for individuals and groups – what should they be able to get done each day and each week? Also, be open to feedback from your employees. Check in with them to ensure they don’t feel overwhelmed with their workload and make adjustments as necessary.
    • Consider time tracking to gain clarity over time spent on tasks. Time tracking reveals how much time different employees take to do certain types of work and where they are devoting most of their work hours.
    • Provide tips and tools to help your remote employees create an optimal work environment. Talk to them about privacy and quiet when working from home, ways to set up an ideal home office, and what expectations they should set for themselves. Your company may need to provide hardware such as VoIP phones, work supplies, or ergonomically correct home office furniture.
    • Encourage a healthy work-life balance. Working remotely can be a positive experience that increases engagement and job satisfaction. However, employees do need support from management to make this happen. Regular feedback, supportive conversations, and help with the challenges of working from home, such as loneliness or a lack of physical movement, can help your remote teams thrive.

    How Many Businesses Are Relying on Remote Teams in 2021?

    A few short years ago, remote work was the exception, not the norm. In 2012, only 24 percent of employees worked from home 80 percent of the time or more.

    Throughout the pandemic, millions of employees traded their daily commute and nine to five at the office for a work-from-wherever lifestyle. Working remotely provided the adaptability and resilience necessary to ensure business continuity during the global health crisis. And now in 2021, 41 percent of the US workforce is fully remote. More than half work from home at least part-time.

    As a result, more employees and employers have experienced the benefits of remote work – the cost-savings, flexibility, and the potential for increased focus and satisfaction with work. So, it’s no surprise that the American workforce is moving ahead with some level of remote work.

    No matter what stage your business is at right now – whether you have a few remote employees, are developing a hybrid work model, or you’re considering going fully remote, build your foundation for success with cloud communications for remote teams. At NTELogic, we provide essentials such as Elevate, Online Meeting, and Contact Center. We also offer impeccable customer service, a 99.999% uptime service level agreement, and leading-edge cloud security.

    To learn more about how using NTELogic can help your business transform, get in touch with our team – we’d be happy to talk to you about how our tools can help you better manage remote teams.

  • 6 Webinar Trends Every Company Should Consider

    Webinars have been an important marketing and engagement tool for years. During the pandemic, the use of virtual events skyrocketed. Between February and March of 2020 alone, the number of B2B brands in the United States using live webinars increased by 36 percent. Whether your company is new to hosting virtual events or not, you should familiarize yourself with the latest webinar trends. This space is more active than ever – take a look at what other brands are doing to help inspire your company’s webinar strategy.

    1. Live Interaction Features Keep Attendees Engaged

    Gone are the days of watching a virtual presenter share their screen and calling it a day. Interactive webinars are on-trend. Live polls, chat, and other real-time attendee engagement tools transform the traditional one-sided webinar into a dynamic conversation that pulls the audience into the experience.

    2. Less Is More When It Comes to Webinar Duration

    With marketing webinars, consider keeping your event relatively short. According to research from 2020, the preferred duration for a webinar is 30 to 40 minutes. If you plan a longer event, you may turn away some potential prospects.

    You don’t need to create a jam-packed virtual event to convert leads, but rather, focus on the most relevant, actionable information you can. If you can’t fit a full presentation into 40 or 50 minutes, consider breaking up your webinar content into two or more different virtual events.

    3. Thought Leaders and Micro-Influencers Boost the Appeal of Virtual Events

    Using this webinar trend can help to attract more people to your event. Draw upon the trust, reach, and unique insights offered by thought leaders and micro-influencers in your industry by inviting them to prevent at your virtual event.

    With the right webinar platform, you can count on high-quality HD video broadcasting and still support up to a dozen presenters at once. This allows you to go from a single presenter to a panel of experts and provide even more value to attendees at the same time.

    4. Global Webinars Expand What’s Possible

    After a year of virtual meetings and digital connections, people worldwide are comfortable using webconferencing technology. This makes it easier to branch out to an international audience.

    To reduce friction for your non-local attendees, make sure your platform offers international dial-in numbers. This way, if they want to participate by phone, they don’t have to worry about the cost of an international phone call.

    5. Custom Experiences Raise the Bar on Virtual Events in 2021

    Create a more personalized experience for webinar attendees with customized invitations and reminder emails. Other perks, such as being able to use your own logo and branding for the webinar background, can enhance the experience further while making your brand more memorable.

    6. More Internal Webinars Empower HR

    With the rise of remote work during COVID and the current shift to hybrid work models, HR teams are relying more on technology to train employees. In 2020, the attendance rate for training webinars was 65 percent. Internal webinars can be an excellent way to onboard employees and gain real-time feedback from them at the same time.

    Essential Webinar Features for Keeping Your Attendees Engaged

    Whether your company is focusing on virtual events for marketing or training and onboarding purposes, you’ll need a fully-featured solution to host effective webinars. The right tools give you the capabilities to reach more people and grow your business. Here are some of the features you should look for in a webinar platform:

    • Live polls engage participants while giving you real-time insights into what everyone is thinking.
    • A Q&A feature makes it easy to field questions from your audience. You can sort, edit, and respond quickly. This makes it easy to keep the flow of the conversation without losing anyone’s attention.
    • HD video broadcasting ensures a professional experience, even with hundreds of attendees and multiple presenters.
    • Cloud recording allows you to record the entire event, including screen share slides, videos, and more, which you can then send to your attendees by email or repurpose as other content for marketing purposes.
    • Built-in reporting reveals who attended, for how long, and feedback from interactive tools such as your surveys and quizzes.
    • A presenter green screen gives you and your other presenters the chance to practice and organize the event before going live. This is a key tool for delivering professional virtual events that leave a positive impression on attendees.

    Getting Started with Webinars in 2021

    Webinars are a useful tool because they have the potential to be deeply engaging while enabling your brand to connect with a large number of people at once. Unlike blog posts, videos, and other types of marketing content that your company might create, publish, and leave for customers to digest, webinars offer a virtual hands-on experience. They can feel intimate, even when hundreds of people are tuned in together online. This is because they allow for face-to-face interaction at scale.

    And, with advanced webinar tools, you can create a truly immersive, high-value experience that will deliver the wow factor you need to stand out in a competitive marketplace.

    Online Meeting from NTELogic is a powerful webinar and video conferencing solution designed to help businesses thrive in the digital space. You’ll have all the features you need to create engaging webinars that convert and more. Learn more about how Online Meeting from NTELogic can enable your company to grow.

  • What Will Work Look Like in 2021?

    2021 is here, and with it comes the hope of normalcy. As we’ve all learned, normal was a relative term, so now, we’re all saying the new normal. In the new year, there are many possibilities about what the workplace will look like, or if there will even be traditional workplaces anymore.

    What 2020 taught the business world is that you have to be resourceful, creative, and agile to survive. SMBs in many industries are still thriving because of this. That success comes in part from their ability to make remote work simple, easy, secure, and collaborative. Executives learned that it is feasible for employees to be at home and still do their jobs well. Some may be doing it even better. The next era could very well be the work from wherever age.

    Remote Work Doesn’t Mean Company Culture Fades Away

    Some of the most successful companies in the world are well-known for their cultures. Culture has become synonymous with the brand itself. Google, Southwest, Costco, and many lesser-known businesses crafted cultures that empower employees and support them.

    In a time when company culture isn’t stuck between two walls, it has to permeate virtually. The new normal of 2021 will be about businesses adapting and finding ways to provide their workforce with the right environment, even if they go to work every day in their home office.

    Enhancing the Work from Wherever Model

    Many companies were unprepared for a full-scale remote employee base. Telecommuting certainly was part of the story before the pandemic, but it was an outlier, not the rule. When they needed to quickly move people home to keep them safe while still maintaining productivity, many businesses made hasty decisions.

    When urgency is a factor in decision-making, it’s easier to make a misstep. If you need something quick, you can’t practice proper due diligence. So, you stick with what you know, like using Google Drive as a file share system or using free video conferencing tools without thinking through the limitations.

    Leaders now have a moment to pause and reflect on how they can improve technology tools and move to an integrated platform that they control. Companies will be rethinking their remote work strategy in terms of tools and structure.

    There are many options for what their new model will look like. You could reopen your office once it’s safe and the vaccine is widely available but still provide people the flexibility to work from home. Or you could move forward with a remote-first model.

    If moving forward with remote-first, companies also have the ability to expand their talent pool. Another potential consequence is that companies can retain employees who want to move outside of urban areas where the cost of living keeps them from homeownership or financial security. There has been no dramatic migration in the U.S. during the pandemic, but it has made people rethink their priorities. Keeping a job they like and moving to a more affordable community is a win-win for employees and employers.

    Businesses That Adapted Will Keep Doing So

    There has been no shortage of innovation in 2020 from businesses of all sizes. The ability to pivot is critical in surviving any kind of disruption to society and the economy. Some of the most important shifts aren’t going to make the headlines, but they show that SMBs, which are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, aren’t afraid of change or taking a leap.

    These adaptations are happening in every facet of the company. These businesses recognized both needs and opportunities. Most were able to do this with a remote workforce. They were still able to serve their customers by transitioning to a remote contact center, hosting virtual events in lieu of in-person ones, and leveraging technology to stay connected.

    Virtual Hiring and Onboarding

    Another part of the 2021 new normal will be hiring and onboarding virtually. As the economy continues to rebound, hiring will pick up. Candidates can expect their interviews to be via video call. Once hired, they’ll likely do all their onboarding virtually as well. There will certainly be concerns about a new hire acclimating if they aren’t in an office. However, motivated workers will take it in stride.

    To ensure this rolls out well in 2021 and beyond, businesses should define their new onboarding process and work to improve it. Much of this comes down to company culture, which will play a role in how well these new workers perform. Additionally, they’ll need simple technology that allows them to communicate and collaborate easily. It shouldn’t take days to get people up to speed on your stack. If it does, that’s a disconnect to rethink.

    Looking Forward: One Thing Is Certain

    The business world is doing a lot of looking ahead right now. It’s extremely hard to have any assurances about 2021. The only certainty is that work from anywhere will be a permanent part of the new normal.

  • Unified Communications for Small Business: 6 Features to Seek Out

    Communication and collaboration are critical to any business. Enabling your employees to do both of these effectively requires the right tools. Unified communications provide small businesses with everything they need. If you are considering switching to a new platform, it’s important to define what features matter most to you. Let’s take a look at the top ones you should seek out.

    The Small Business Communication and Collaboration Challenge

    Small businesses typically pursue strategies based on efficiency and productivity. They know they need to operate lean to find success. These businesses often have distributed teams, even more so now with the transition to remote work. Because teams are not in a central space and cannot interact with partners and clients in person, the demand for communication and collaboration tools is skyrocketing.

    The problem that many small businesses face is using multiple platforms for chat, video conferencing, and file sharing. If tools are in silos, teams may be as well. With the rise of cloud-based unified communications, small businesses can now afford integrated solutions that enhance communication and collaboration.

    Choosing Unified Communications for Small Business: Must-Have Features

    Your small business should consider unified communications to resolve the use of disparate systems, save money, and improve workflows. When comparing offerings, there are some must-have features you should include.

    Ability to Scale

    Every business has growth aspirations. As you add team members, you’ll need to consider how your technology can scale. It should be easy and straightforward. Unified communications platforms provide you with this control. Ideally, you want to be able to add users in a few clicks. Be sure to inquire about this when comparing providers.

    Support for Business Continuity

    Business continuity is vital for any organization. Natural disasters or other disruptions can put your company at risk if communication systems aren’t available. Unified communications helps support business continuity. The system can ring all endpoints for every call. If no one answers, you can route calls to a number of your choosing, including mobile or an automated attendant.

    Cloud-Based Phones

    Unified communications frees your staff to answer and receive calls from anywhere via VoIP (voice over IP). Employees can take calls from their desktop computer or mobile phone. You’ll experience the same call quality, no matter where you are. Cloud-based phone systems also streamline management from a single web-based portal. You’ll enjoy all the features of any standard business phone, including voicemail to email, hold and park, transferring calls, and call recording.

    Call Analytics

    Measuring the performance of sales and customer support is possible with call analytics. You can track the usage of your teams through reporting. These reports help you analyze the efficiency of your teams and the quality of the engagement with customers. If phone calls are a medium for your sales and support teams, this is a feature you absolutely need.

    Video Conferencing That’s Secure and Easy to Deploy

    Video conferencing has never been more necessary in the business world. It offers your team the ability to connect when in-person meetings aren’t feasible meaningfully. While many unified communications platforms include video conferencing, they aren’t all the same. It’s especially important to determine the security of the system to ensure privacy and compliance.

    It should also be easy to deploy. It shouldn’t require your team to sit through hours of training or download lots of applications. A browser-based solution means users can start meetings with a click and work from any device.

    File Backup and Collaboration from Anywhere

    Having a secure, accessible repository for documents is paramount to simplifying collaboration. Your team members can work together on a document, even editing at the same time. This functionality eliminates the need to email back and forth with multiple versions of a document. Unified communications allows you to achieve the next level of collaboration, and users can have access from anywhere.

    Security is also a factor with a file repository. Advanced security technology should keep files safe. Backup of those files automatically also means you can recover them quickly in the case of a ransomware attack or other data loss incident.

    Enable Better Communication and Collaboration with Unified Communications

    Unified communications is a smart, reliable toolkit for any small business. Your team will have all the resources it needs to communicate and collaborate, all on one platform. As you search for the right solution, keep in mind these must-have features.

    Elevate by NTELogic offers all of these and so much more. 

  • Study Finds More Than Half of U.S. SMB Owners Believe Working Remotely is Here to Stay Post-Pandemic

    Embracing remote work has been a love-hate relationship for many small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners. With new technology allowing workers to work from wherever and whenever more than ever before, employers have had to balance this reality against having the peace of mind that frequently comes from being in the same physical space as your employees. As owners try and adapt to this new tech reality, more and more companies have been adopting a hybrid approach—offering the option for some remote work but not fully committing.

    Now, we’re living in a different reality. The coronavirus has made it abundantly clear that the need to work remotely is no longer a perk or a convenience – it’s a necessity. But thanks to the technology that has been enabling more productive and collaborative remote work in recent years, notably unified communications tools, the ability to stand up a remote work environment can be very easy, fast, and affordable.

    And yet, anything new, especially something that happens so rapidly such as the need to shift the majority if not all of a company’s workforce from centralized to remote, can certainly cause issues and concerns. So, to better understand how businesses are adapting to remote working and to gauge how prevalent remote work may be post pandemic, Intermedia commissioned a survey of 250 small and medium-sized business owners or senior decision-makers that employ between five to 250 people. These respondents had to have at least 50% of their workforce in office-based roles.

    Of those businesses surveyed, nearly 85% of their employees worked in a centralized office pre pandemic. That number has, not surprisingly, decreased dramatically – to 26% – once social distancing and shelter in place orders went into effect.

    Highlights of the Findings

    Ready to have everyone head back to the office? Not so fast.

    Early findings from the report reveal that of the SMB owners who increased remote working as a result of social distancing, 57% said they will likely maintain increased remote working options for employees in the long-term. This indicates a shift not only in the way businesses operate but also how business owners, employees, and customers will engage with one another in the future. Among the biggest benefits of shifting to remote work, SMB owners have found that employee availability (up 19%), job (up 15%), and life satisfaction (up 7%) have all increased, while overheard costs have gone down.

    Respondents offered real-world examples with comments like “workers attitudes have improved” and employees are “happier” and “more productive.” There are obvious pressures from the shelter in place protocols, but workers specifically noted their reduction in stress was due to no longer dealing with stresses around office work, commuting, time away from family, and the costs associated with being in a physical location, seem to result in workers that are more engaged and ready to make a difference.

    Business owners still see the value of in-person meetings, but video conferencing is on the rise

    One of the top concerns voiced by those surveyed was the ability to engage with new prospects and continuing to serve existing customers while Coronavirus-related interaction restrictions are in place. Almost all SMB owners (94%) said in-person interactions have been essential to conducting new business in the last two years. Additionally, 72% said that the current restrictions on face-to-face meetings will play a significant role in their team’s ability to continue business as usual. Technology however, was not cited as a top concern, implying that getting the right tools deployed in order to keep their businesses running was not a barrier.

    In fact, survey findings indicate that companies are turning to technology to help deliver face-to-face interactions once reserved for in-person meetings. 57% of respondents indicated a reliance on video conferencing pre-pandemic, while that reliance has jumped to 84% currently – an increase of 27%, the most significant jump across all communications channels covered within the survey (including phone, email, chat, and others).

    Remote Work Isn’t Just a Temporary Fix

    Remote work has been expanding considerably over the past few years. It’s allowed companies to have a larger pool of candidates and reduce costs. Workers crave a more flexible lifestyle that balances work and play, which often means they want the option to work from anywhere. Plus, technology now provides a perfect foundation for employees to work from any location with total accessibility, easy collaboration, and robust security.

    COVID-19 has certainly made us reexamine the entire concept of work, illustrating that many jobs can be done remotely without sacrificing productively. As more business owners realize that employee availability and job satisfaction can remain high, if not increase, within a remote working environment, the findings of this survey indicate an increase to remote working will remain well after the pandemic passes.

    Methodology

    This survey was conducted among 250 business owners or senior decision makers, from organizations employing between 5 and 250 people. Respondents belong to organizations where at least 50% of staff are normally office based but there has been a reduction in office-based working since Covid-19. All interviews were conducted online by Sapio Research, in partnership with Intermedia, in April 2020 using an email invitation and an online survey.

  • 6 Realistic Time Management Tips for Remote Workers

    You’re working on your monthly sales target report when your youngest barges into your bedroom, screaming her lungs out because the brother just took her toy. Now you have to pause working and solve the sibling rivalry. Or, you’re busy working on that urgent report, you hear your favorite song playing, so you put your laptop down and run to the living room to listen to it.

    These scenarios describe what working from home is like for most people. If you relate to either, you’re in good company. Managing your time during remote work is hard, so here are some tips.

    1. Create a New Routine

    If you began working remotely in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, then your routine before probably involved getting up early, grabbing some coffee, and commuting to work. Now that your life revolves around remote work, the line between work and personal life has become thin or nonexistent.

    When working remotely, you need to find a balance between work and private time to manage your time. The only way to do this is giving yourself a routine again. Routines create order and bring healthy stability to an unstructured day.

     So, wake up at the same time you used to, take a shower, dress up, grab some coffee, and then immerse yourself in your work. If you cannot stick to the same routine every day, try the famed A/B schedule, which involves switching up your schedule either day to day or week to week. It will help break the monotony while keeping you focused.

    2. Track Your Time Spending

    Start tracking your time to determine how long it takes you to complete daily productivity tasks and create the right schedule. For instance, if your work involves calling clients and writing reports, track how long each task takes. This will help you identify the tasks you enjoy doing, those that take longer, and those you find boring. 

    With such info at hand, you can prioritize tasks you find boring when you’re most productive, then complete your day with those you enjoy so you don’t procrastinate. Tracking time also helps you determine how much time to allocate each duty, so you push yourself to complete it before the hour or two you need is over. 

    3. Take Scheduled Breaks 

    Time management during remote work is critical, but remember you’re only human, and you need breaks. You cannot be a productive part of your team if you work yourself to burnout. So, while creating your schedule, make sure you schedule breaks. Have a mini-break every hour, and then create longer one or two hour breaks during the day. 

    You can even use the Promodoro time management technique. It involves working at 25-minute intervals. Simply choose the task, set a 25-minute timer, work on it until the timer goes off, and then take a 15-30 minute break. 

    Use this free time to take a walk, grab a snack, or take your pet around the block. You’ll come back refreshed and ready to bounce back to the next task. 

    4. Stay in Touch with Your Colleagues

    Humans are social beings. Even though you work remotely, you need to have some social interaction to remain productive. Otherwise, you’ll feel socially isolated. To prevent this from happening, stay in touch with your colleagues who’re also working remotely.

    If you’re the team leader, deploy collaboration tools that allow those on your team to connect easily for both formal and informal discussions. Staying in touch with your remote team not only prevents social isolation but also enables you to stay updated on any unexpected events that may affect your remote-working schedule. 

    5. Avoid Multitasking 

    Multitasking might seem like a good thing, but if you want to achieve effective remote work time management, take one step at a time. Why? It takes your brain about 15 minutes to refocus every time you switch to a different task. 15 minutes is a lot of time gone down the drain and time you could have used to complete a single task efficiently.

    As much as you want to get things done, do one thing at a time. You’ll be more productive because all your focus is on it, and you’ll probably finish it more quickly than when you’re trying to get everything done in one go. 

    6. Use Productivity Apps 

    Productivity apps keep you accountable. You can allocate a timeline for each project, so you meet the deadline, and they even alert you when it’s time for a break and when it’s time to get back to work. In other words, they keep on your toes, so you don’t waste time on unnecessary tasks.

    A Remote Work Success Kit Specially Designed for You

    Unable to manage your time while working from home? Consider using a remote work success kit from NTELogic to improve your time management skills while working from home.

  • 10 Video Conferencing Features You’ll Want

    Your video conferencing platform is one of your company’s most important business communications tools. Forty-one percent of users believe that companies who incorporate video conferencing as a communications channel have more engaged employees, and 89 percent say it helps them feel more connected. But, you want to make sure you have the best video conferencing features in order to get the most out of this essential business tool.

    A feature-rich video conferencing solution can empower your teams to be productive no matter where they are located. It can help your company better connect with clients and other stakeholders. It can also make it easier to collaborate, problem-solve, and hold effective meetings in real time.

    Here is a look at the key features that can help your video users have the best experience possible.

    1. Screen Sharing

    For interactive meetings and webinars, screen sharing is vital. You want to be able to share your entire screen as well as individual apps on your desktop during a meeting. This makes it easier for your video conference participants to follow what the presenter is explaining.

    2. Multiple Webcam Capabilities

    During a video conference, it’s more impactful if you can see the face of the individual who’s doing the talking in order to pick up on those all-important visual cues. If your business has a lot of remote workers or if you regularly hold meetings with employees on-the-go, look for dynamic webcam features. Ideally, your video conferencing solution will support multiple webcams so everyone can be seen – and understood – during the meeting. Intermedia’s video conferencing tool can support up to a dozen webcams at once.

    3. VoIP

    For remote teams, communicating with video should be as easy as connecting by phone or chat is. When your video conferencing tool is a part of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) package, it is. With video conferencing through VoIP, communicating is absolutely seamless. Users can switch from voice calls to video calls or group meetings by pushing a button. There’s no need to establish a new connection or to pause communication just to change channels or add participants.

    4. Chat Features

    Whether you’re broadcasting to a group of leads with a marketing webinar or holding a meeting with employees, your users will get more out of the experience if they can interact. This is why a robust chat feature is so useful. Look for chat capabilities that allow your video conference users to share messages, including text and emojis, during a meeting or online event.

    5. Remote Control

    For collaborative meetings, this video conferencing feature is something you don’t want to miss. It allows participants to have direct control over your computer’s keyboard and mouse, making it possible to edit and make changes to shared documents in real time.

    6. Unlimited Recording

    You’ll want to be able to record your video meetings and presentations. Most video conferencing platforms make recording easy, but you want to look for a feature that will offer unlimited storage in the cloud, as well as easy sharing capabilities. You should be able to record a meeting or webinar and share it with one click with multiple participants.

    7. HD Video

    For an even better meeting experience, HD video can make a huge difference. With high-quality video, everyone can clearly see who’s speaking, making it feel like everyone is right there in the same room.

    8. Branding Features

    This is an important feature if you’re creating video content for customers, such as webinars or educational presentations. You’ll want to be able to include your company logo and any other branding. This will make your webinar content professional-looking.

    9. Dynamic Presentation Features

    For complex presentations, you’ll want to have certain features to rely on. Make sure you can upload a variety of file types, including MP4 videos, PPTs, and PDFs. This gives you the flexibility to add rich media to the presentation to keep your participants’ attention. Another advanced video conferencing feature that can empower better presentations is note sharing. You can capture a series of steps or a specific segment of the presentation and send it to participants as notes during the meeting or webinar.

    10. Performance Reports

    Performance metrics are important for evaluating how well received your presentations are, which parts are the most engaging, and how many people are attending your event. Look for a platform with both attendance and chat reports so you can get adequate feedback from your meetings and webinars.

    It’s worth it to ensure you have all the right video conferencing features for your business. Advanced features make it possible to hold dynamic and effective meetings from anywhere in the world, at any time. Explore how Intermedia’s video conferencing tool can empower your business.

  • Remote Work Is Here to Stay

    What Lies Ahead for Businesses Tomorrow?

    The new normal has settled in on the business world, at least for now. To accommodate for the current environment and public health emergency, many workers have shifted to work from home mode. This significant change will forever impact the way people work as companies realize that remote work is productive, cost-effective, and efficient. Remote work will begin to be part of operational models. So, what does your organization need to be prepared? The right tools and technology will make all the difference.

    Remote Work Was Already Growing in Popularity

    Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak that caused workers to be at home, remote work was already growing in popularity. In Out Of Office: Remote Work In 2023, one study found the number of full-time remote workers doubled between 2018 and 2021. This data provides clear insight into the fact that companies were already changing their mindset on the work environment and understanding the benefits of offering flexible work schedules.

    Why Working from Home Is Here to Stay

    The new normal has settled in on the business world, at least for now. To accommodate for the current environment and public health emergency, many workers have shifted to work from home mode. This significant change will forever impact the way people work as companies realize that remote work is productive, cost-effective, and efficient. Remote work will begin to be part of operational models. So, what does your organization need to be prepared? The right tools and technology will make all the difference.
    These investments and new perspectives won’t disappear after stay at home bans are relaxed. Even industries with regulations around data collection, storage, and sharing, like healthcare and finance, are learning that remote working environments can be just as secure as those in a corporate office.

    Moving Forward: How Remote Work Doesn’t Change Your Operations or Strategy

    Having most or all your employees working from home doesn’t have to impact your operations or strategy. There will be some adjustments that have to be made, but, for the most part, things stay the same. Additionally, there are significant advantages to having a remote team.

    Work Environments Stay Consistent

    For operations to not be affected, ideally, you want employees to have the same work environment at home as they did in the office. The best way to meet this need is with a UCaaS (unified communications as a service) platform. A unified communications platform has everything you need to support remote workers.
    Employees have the same access at home as they would at the office. It combines all communication tools—phone, video conferencing, instant chat, and email—into one hub. UCaaS lives in the cloud, so your team needs only an internet connection to access it. Of note, when using UCaaS, you should also consider any security or privacy requirements and make sure you select a solution that meets these needs.
    The flexibility your team will have with UCaaS could actually make them more productive as communication becomes streamlined and simplified. It even boosts collaboration between employees because they can communicate more easily and share files as needed. While it’s easy to think that collaboration is enhanced by being in the same room, that’s not always true as there could be barriers to this you’re not even aware of, like conflicting schedules, no areas to meet, or other challenges.

    Sizing Up Your Infrastructure

    How you operate doesn’t need to change when going remote, but you’ll want to evaluate your infrastructure. This assessment comes down to three major components for setting up your team for remote work.

    • Reliability: UCaaS is cloud-based, so it’s much more reliable than legacy phone systems. However, not every UCaaS is the same, so look for very high uptime percentages.
    • Security: If you work in a regulated industry or not, you need to protect your data. Pay attention to how a system encrypts data and if it does so only in transit or at rest, as well.
    • Support: When you partner with a UCaaS provider, it’s important to find one that is responsive. Most providers have 24/7 support, but what’s their service level agreement (SLA)? Make sure it fits your needs.

    The Cost of Remote Work

    Does remote work cost your business more? The simple answer is no. In fact, it can decrease costs. The technology and tools you use in the office transfer to working from home. There are no additional costs associated with making your UCaaS mobile—they are designed to offer this flexibility. With UCaaS, you can have unlimited calls and meetings.

    Workers Adapting

    The final element of the future of remote work is how employees will adapt. If they’ve already been working from home occasionally, they have an idea of what to expect. For those new to this, they may need some tips on how to work remotely effectively. The good thing is that their tools are in the same place, so they don’t have to reinvent how they work.
    Remote work is the present and future for many organizations. Are you prepared? See how NTELogic Elevate delivers an exceptional experience for remote workers.

  • Lighting & Camera Angle: Looking Your Best

    We’re spending more time on camera than we could have ever imaged just two months ago. Some of us are accustomed to it. For others, it is new and we still feel awkward seeing ourselves in the almost non-stop video conferences and meetings.
    Here’s a video we came across that is full of great information on how to look good on camera.