By: Appetite20 Feb 12, 03:23 PM

Yet alongside the fun and games, the prestige of the UK holding court to this global event, comes the disruption the games are going to cause.  Every day the media brings new reports not only of the transport and road chaos, but of the impact the games could have on business and the effect on workplace productivity.

For businesses this brings additional pressures over what can, for many, be an already stretched summer period. Increased journey times for employees, additional requests for leave for those lucky enough to have secured tickets; and a predicted dramatic increase in the number of absentees and late- comers. 

Over the last few weeks there has been an increase in the media of organisations' trialing remote working.  On the 8^th Feb 02'’s 12,000 workforce trailed remote working to assess the impact of how the company would cope if staff were unable to reach the office.

As a training consultancy we always advocate & embrace the use of technologies that are available to help organisations’ to work smarter and stay connected with those team members who are working remotely from the main office base.  Here at Appetite we enable our own employees to ensure they can work remotely as and when required.

In-house we use Microsoft 365 to access all our shared documentation and we use Lync to connect and communicate instantly with any of the team.  With the in- build presence indicator it’s easy to see who is available, or who is in a meeting and what time they will be available and instead of having to cancel scheduled training we were able to use online technology to help us connect with our clients.   Technology tools such as these were a godsend during the particularly bad bout of winter weather we experienced last year.

As an organization you shouldn’t wait until a major disruption hits and potentially disrupts day to day operations, before putting in place tools to equip your teams. By understanding what is available now, you can be ahead to ensure that negative effects are mitigated as far as possible.

In the run up to the Olympics, Appetite are offering a complimentary consultancy service to discuss remote working, what it is, and the different technologies that could help businesses stay productive and within budget.