Whether your organization offers employees the flexibility to work remotely or you have a team with frequent travelers, empowering your team with these mobile tech tools is one of the best ways to boost productivity when team members are OOO.
Today we’ll cover five tools that will help your employees by offering them easy access to various aspects of their job while they’re on-the-go.
Mobile Tech Tool #1: Mobile Hotspots
Work often takes your team off the grid. Whether you are jammed in an office car for hours on a business trip, or just at a coffee shop trying to clear your head and get work done, having WiFi is essential. While many businesses often offer free WiFi, when you are on-the-go, you may not have access to a connection at all times.
Mobile hotspots allow you to quickly connect to the internet so you can check your email, download critical reports, and other general online tasks.
Purchase hotspots for your office so that your employees can sign them out if they want to. If you are concerned about the hotspots being abused, you can set some ground rules for how long they can be checked out and why, and what the data (work-related!) can be used for, and how much data can be used per day.
Mobile hotspots can also encourage your team to shake up their work routine and get a change of scenery or some fresh air. Employees will no longer feel tethered to their desks because they have options to be as creative as they want with their work environment like working from a picnic table at the park or a lively coffee shop.
There is strong evidence supporting the fact that remote workers at least feel more productive, so allowing your workers to work in another setting (for at least part of their work week or on a monthly basis) may healthfully impact your employees.
Mobile Tech Tool #2: Airplane Wifi Memberships
Being stuck on an airplane for hours on end without WiFi can feel draining and unproductive. When you are on a long flight, but work is calling, doing your job offline is not always the best option – or even possible. Luckily, there are airplane WiFi memberships that allow your employees to stay productive even when they are in the sky.
Gogo Inflight Internet is a great subscription option for companies looking to empower their employees with on-the-go tech tools. Gogo works with many airlines such as United, Delta, American, Alaska, and more. This means there is a considerable likelihood that the flights you book for your employees will be Gogo compatible.
With Gogo, you save money if you purchase passes in advance. Get a number of Gogo passes each month, being sure to watch out for their expiration dates, so your team can be productive even if they are flying.
If your team flies on an airline without Gogo or a WiFi membership, consider creating a travel WiFi policy that includes long-haul flights or covers WiFi access for folks that travel frequently so they can stay on top of their work while they’re at 30,000 feet.
Mobile Tech Tool #3: Call Forwarding and Cell Phone Stipends
Sometimes you need to step away from the office, but you don’t want to miss important calls. Our next mobile tech tool, call forwarding, allows your employees to answer essential calls from wherever they are. This is critical while your employees are attending business trips because calls that would likely end up as a left message can now be handled wherever they are.
One of the catch-22’s of both call forwarding and cell phone reimbursements is it can make ‘out of bounds’ work feel like an obligation to your team. Employees to feel like they need to answer calls 24/7, even after business hours. The goal should be to empower them to take important calls outside of the office when it’s really necessary, not because they feel that day-to-day work can’t wait until office hours.
Some teams that may benefit from call forwarding and/or a cell phone reimbursement policy could be sales teams, field-based teams, or even project or product teams that frequently have to speak with teams in other time zones. Product managers, for example, often have remote development teams that require communication during odd hours.
Mobile Tech Tool #4: Work-Friendly Tablets
The truth of the matter is: laptops and desktops can be bulky and they’re not always suited for every situation. Consider a lunch meeting with a client – it would be mildly inappropriate to open a laptop over a lunch table to show something to a client, but a tablet is much more discrete. Another situation where access to an office tablet can come in handy is for events.
Whether the marketing team needs a lightweight device to manage event registrations or to capture sales leads from a trade show… or you have team members who are attending conferences for education, tablets often make much more sense than bulky laptops.
Like mobile hotspots, you’ll want to create a sign in/out process, device policy, and a way to quickly wipe the devices (or utilize guest accounts) in between users.
Mobile technology can make work easier and less stressful for your team — and even improve the quality of their work life. Most of the tools we’ve listed here aren’t expensive and the return on your investment can be tremendous in terms of employee morale and productivity.
And if you’re not sure what would be the most valuable to their work needs, ask your team what’ll help them most.
