by Kimberly Kohatsu

Last year, according to WorldatWork, about 26.2 million people, or nearly 20% of the adult working population, worked from home or from a remote location at least once a month. These “remote locations” included satellite centers, hotels, and while on vacation. But if you’re like me, tethered to your smartphone and laptop at almost all times, that number actually seems pretty low.

Regardless, teleworking and flexible work schedules are becoming mainstream benefits. The ability to perform work remotely is an effective tool “in attracting younger employees who appreciate greater flexibility and to recruite remote workers from a wider talent pool,” Susan Bergman of The Society for Human Resource Management recently told Mashable. And it’s not just the Gen Y’s and millenials who are looking for work flexibility. “It’s attractive to busy parents, workers nearing retirement and workers in metro areas where commuting is very time consuming,” Bergman said.

CallFire, being headquartered in Los Angeles, certainly fits that last category. Last month, the US Census reported that LA commuters on average spend 28.1 minutes getting to work (another number that may seem surprisingly low). But if my fuzzy math is correct, that still means that each year, we spend more time commuting than we do on vacation. Talk about lost productivity. Which brings me to my next point: teleworking is not just attractive to employees, but employers as well.

Employees who telework are generally more productive and report greater job satisfaction, due in large part to advances in technology which give them the same access to information as office-based workers. Intranet sites and shared servers mean employees can focus on work without the distractions of meetings, casual conversations, office politics, and other interruptions which, over time, can prove stressful and infringe upon their work-life balance.

CallFire’s Cloud Call Center is, for many sales teams, another tool in the arsenal that allows employees to work remotely. All a sales agent needs is an internet connection and a telephone. The customer’s data and call outcomes are stored securely on the cloud. CallFire also provides the tools to monitor the employee’s phone activities while on the job.

Last February, I wrote about how Citibank was able to retain 700 of its workers despite closing its physical call center in Albuquerque, by leveraging the power of telework. A month later, Allstate Insurance also closed its Albuquerque claims call center. But because of advanced technology, the adjusters can be supervised out of Phoenix.

More and more, teleworking is being driven by necessity. Angela Baron, an advisor to the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said “whilst technology has enabled remote working, it is more the demands of business that is driving it.” This means that not only do work-at-home employees need the ability to work independently and to self-motivate, but that managers need to develop the ability to manage remotely. Crucial to the task, says Baron, are the “communication skills to keep remote workers connected to the team and ensure adequate knowledge exchange and alignment to team and organizational aims and objectives.”

That’s a fancy way of saying managers must facilitate an environment where, even if you’re working from home, you still feel like you’re part of a company. You’re by yourself, but you’re not alone.

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by Natalia Klishina

Generation G(enerosity)

In one of my recent posts, I briefly mentioned “Generation G” — a growing contingent of Americans described by trendwatching.com, where the G stands for Generosity. These Americans are increasingly “disgusted with greed” and its effects on society and the economy; they long for more generosity, for “institutions that care,” and for for people who “share, give, engage, create and collaborate.” Generation G is made up of anyone from the old to the young — from billionaires pledging half of their wealth to charity, to the average blue-collar American.

When it comes to businesses, however, it’s not enough to tout a “social responsibility” program comprised of various initiatives that at times may be a forced response to outside a pressure. A business should seem like it genuinely wants to be good and generous — towards customers, towards employees, and towards the world. This doesn’t mean forgetting about profits and bottom lines, though. Check out the entire trendwatching article to read about their “8 ways for corporations to join Generation G” — from co-donating, to eco-generosity, to random acts of kindness. With dozens of past examples, you’re sure to find something to inspire you. And for a more recent example, read today’s Mobile Marketer article on how Coca-Cola is pairing up with HMSHost for a mobile sweepstakes campaign and giving program that will benefit Feeding America.

The Cold, Hard Numbers

Want a more obvious business incentive other than warm fuzzies? A Duke University and Cone survey found that nearly 8 in 10 consumers say they would switch to another brand if it was associated with a good cause. A PR Week and Barkley Public Relations survey corroborated the findings when they found that 88% of millennials say they would switch to brands supporting causes. The latter study also discovered that more than half of American moms say they would pay more to for a brand that supports a cause. And these will undoubtedly be growing trends in today’s society. As a business, you cannot afford to ignore them.

CallFire

So what’s CallFire doing for our part? Other than providing discounts to the many non-profits and charities we work with, we’re also working to provide text-to-give programs to our customers (if you’re interested in participating, please give our sales line a call). Also, we’re currently devising our own social and environmental responsibility program, as well as a donation program where we’ll give 1% of our profits to employee-picked charities. If you weren’t (or aren’t) a CallFire customer, would you be more likely to become one if you knew CallFire was a B Corporation? We’d love to get your input on the subject, so let us know!

This past weekend, the CallFire team attended Opportunity Green, a conference where leaders and executive in the “green” space collaborated, shared ideas, and discussed sustainable practices.
CallFire was there to share information regarding how call centers can be made more environmentally friendly.

Businesses and organizations can use our Cloud Call Center to hire employees or volunteers that can work out of their homes instead of commuting into a traditional call center, and creating pollution. The conference itself was extremely environmentally friendly, with each attendee receiving a Kor water bottle, and filling stations from Everpure located throughout the conference area. Food served for lunch was organic from Organic to Go and Whole Foods, and all of the plastic was biodegradable. The non-dairy coconut icecream from Coconut Bliss was a highlight of ours!

The green perception of CallFire was well received at the conference, and we made some good industry connections. Organic fair trade chocolate from Sweet Earth and Shaman attracted people to our booth, and the telephone number listed on the plantable seed paper band was an ice breaker into what CallFire does. The number on the paper gave attendees a chance to win an ipod nano. One lucky winner would call the number and find out that they were the winner. The number was one of the toll free numbers that CallFire sells for the Call Tracking/Call Forwarding product. This lead into discussions about CallFire as a whole.

I spent this Sunday afternoon at Eco Fabulous in Newport Coast. My interest in the relationship between tech & sustainability, got me here.  Green conferences like Opportunity Green are pushing businesses to embrace sustainable business practices, while outlining the business benefits of doing so. A homesourcing analysis by IDC forecasts 300,000 ‘homesourced’ workers in the U.S. by 2010. It’s no wonder Cloud Call Center platforms like CallFire are considered serious players in “Green Tech”.

Cloud Call Centers and Hosted IVRs seem to be the #1 way to reduce the overall carbon footprint of your call center or small business workforce.

Reduce emissions by hiring from home

The average US call center agent commutes 24 miles via automobile.
In a 50-week year, this agent will account for 6,000 miles/yr.
The average agent carbon footprint is about 2 tons of C02 each year!

Slash call center startup costs & reduce waste

The average call center requires 130-200 square feet per agent.
Agents require a PC, telephone & high speed internet connection.*
A 100-seat call center can save 168,000 kWh/yr by homsourcing.
*Note: Utilizing idle computing hardware seems to be a green trend.  Watch “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard.

Cloud Call Centers lead to happy agents

Improve employee satisfaction by reducing commuter costs, reducing parking frustration & vehicle wear.
Hire the best agents anywhere in the world, while targeting low-cost geographies.
Increase agent productivity & decrease sick-leave as it did for Holland America Cruise Lines.

Now that Cloud Call Center agents can use their own home office, PC and internet connection, the barriers to develop call centers for the enterprise and SMB markets are reducing quickly.  With $0 hardware and no recurring infrastructure costs, hiring from home is both sustainable & preferable to most US business owners.