Do you commute to work? Do you sit in traffic during that commute? Do you sit in an unreasonable amount of traffic? Do you feel your time can be better spent being more productive? If so I’m with you. Anyone else feel it’s crazy to pay $13.50 to go 10 miles slightly faster and then still have to sit in a jam after those 10 miles?
This is life in the DC area and it can easily be that same case for any major metropolitan city. I have heard comedians make the joke that to get ride of all the traffic, if only the people going north could change jobs or homes with the people going south everything would be fine (it goes something like that). Traffic is a plague to the issues like fossil fuels and ozone. There is a 21st century solution to all these problems; work remotely.
Do you sit in traffic and when you get to your destination to only sit in front of a computer? Well then you probably can do that anywhere you have an internet connection. Listen, I get some jobs need to be on location to do the work. If you work in a SCIF (which happens a lot here in DC) if you do your job with your hands i.e. doctor, mechanic, assembly line etc., but if all you do is work off a computer screen it might be possible for you to work anywhere? Does it even have to be a computer can it be done on a tablet or a phone?
A large majority of the traffic in the DC area is the government workers, so the irony is that my tax dollars pay for the people that cause my commute to be so awful. Well my tax dollars say, “Work remotely.”
Okay, so how can your work be done remotely? Most any business applications can be accessed now without being onsite, whether it being through a secure server or even better, just a web browser. The President travels all over the world, how do you think he does it? Just think about the kind of information he is accessing remotely. Lap tops, tablets, phones, etc—people access all types of information from just about anywhere.
KTL has a number of options to help a company do this. We have a browser agnostic based solution called Acumatica, the ability to set up Microsoft accounting software so it can be accessed from any location, Dynamics CRM which is designed to be a web product, and finally, KTL has its own secure cloud hosting solution called, KTL, etc (Empower the Cloud.)
The above solutions will allow you to access your work anytime, anywhere, and from any device. Ever have one of those thoughts of inspiration while you are just sitting around or in traffic thinking about how to solve a work issue or a great idea comes to you and you aren’t able to act on it right away? How many times has it happened and when you finally get to the office that great inspiration has become forgotten?
Who doesn’t have their work email go directly to their phone? If we can do that and always be connected, why not also be able to take care of, execute, or access what the emails are about? The technology exists. If your company does not have the ability to access your work systems remotely by a browser, you need to contact your COO. This may mean your company has outdated software. Most any new business application can do this today. They can be a very easy and quick update and does not have to be a whole new software upgrade.
It is said there are a number of benefits to being able to work remotely for an organization, such as less sick & bad weather days taken, reduction of companies overhead and more hours worked. In 2013, Stanford University conducted a study of a Chinese call center, randomly assigning some employees to work from home and some to work in the office for nine months. They found a 13% performance increase by those working from home, of which 9% was from working more minutes per shift due to less breaks and sick days. Commutes, breaks, sick days, chit-chat—it all adds up, and it comes out of the company’s allowance, not the employee’s. Not to mention the impact to the environment, morale and a person’s stress level. Also, by moving applications to the cloud helps companies save on infrastructure, maintenance of their internal systems, support costs and updates.
If you find it a waste of time and resources sitting in traffic for hours, paying unreasonable tolls, constantly filling up your gas tank and want to help save the environment talk with your company about looking into newer technology and software that will enable their employees to work from anywhere and put an end to the madness. Get in touch with KTL so we can discuss how to best improve the value to your company with the right solutions. Contact them today by emailing sales@ktlsolutions.com, calling 301.360.0001 and asking for Mark, or by visiting our website at www.ktlsolutions.com
MARK LAWRENCE | Sales Executive
Mark has over 10 years of experience in providing technology solutions. Starting with Monster World Wide in Tempe, AZ. After a few years working with National Accounts, Mark was promoted and relocated to the DC area as the Enterprise Sales Representative for the Mid-Atlantic. Here, he was the main Monster contact for Fortune 1000 companies such as Philip Morris, Dollar Tree, Volkswagen of America and Smithfield Foods, just to name a few. Mark was also a consultant to these companies by providing services such as recruiting and HR solutions from the hiring process to out placement service and applicant tracking systems. Mark joined KTL in 2014. With his background and experience in understanding and providing technology to specific needs and challenges for non-profit and other organizations, he has become an asset to KTL’s accounts department.
