Mobile collaboration could save SMEs headaches during the tube strike

Stephen Duignan, VP of International Marketing, LogMeIn, explains why employers should look to mobile collaboration to save headaches during the tube strike.

In today’s digital age, when travel disruption hits, it should be business as usual. However as we know, this is not the case. Estimates around the financial cost of the strike vary, but recent figures suggest it could cost London businesses a total of £10 million as workers arrive late, set off for home early, and spend more time travelling.

With every strike comes a wealth of advice on how to travel across London, but it still doesn’t stop workers being stressed at their desk. This raises a wider point, and a more compelling issue: why don’t more employers grant their teams the freedom to work from a more convenient location, instead of confining them to their desks?

RELATED: Remote Working: Why aren’t more people doing it?

Many business leaders have held reservations about increasing the flexibility of working practices for fear of remote workers being less productive. However, with the influx of Millennials into the workforce, an ‘always on’ culture has prevailed which directly challenges the status-quo of the archaic office-desk routine. This attitude demonstrates that productivity is not constrained to traditional environments.

Employees today have high technological expectations. They are already highly mobile and consumerised in their own lives, and expect the same standard of technology to help them make their jobs easier. This includes flexible collaboration with colleagues in different cities and across time zones.

A recent survey by join.me revealed 52% of under-35s hold external meetings online, rather than face-to-face. Many of these meetings are ad-hoc and don’t require sitting around a desk. This style of working will only increase as more Millennials enter the workplace. We’ll see a definite move to a more connected, collaborative and mobile work environment.

If employers want to take steps to implement mobile working, then the tube strike is a good time to test their business-readiness. Here are some handy tips for virtual collaboration:

• Think beyond the regular office space to accommodate flexible schedules. Any space with WiFi is a potential work location.
• Businesses must implement technologies that enable fast and reliable on-the-go work, as well as mobile meetings.
• These platforms should be optimised for most smart devices – including future proofing for ones which haven’t been invented yet.
• Choose platforms which integrate with each other to provide seamless work experience which is easy to use.