Remote Working in the COVID-19 Era

Posted on April 24, 2020 by Moshe Beauford

A conversation with Flowroute’s VP of Engineering and Products

By Moshe Beauford, UC Today

This article is condensed and originally appeared in UC Today.

In a matter of weeks, companies in the unified communications and collaboration industry scaled up to support millions of new remote workers across the globe. All this, in response to the novel Coronavirus pandemic.

And the fact that these companies could scale up so fast, showcases how critical it is for enterprises to have such flexibility. Al Castle, Vice President of Engineering and Products, Flowroute, told UC Today during an interview, he believes companies of all sizes should be able to shift from employees working in an office to the comfort of their homes with little-to-no complexities, adding:

“They are doing so with few hiccups, and it is unprecedented. Meetings continue to happen and calls are now routed to remote contact center agents working from home”

During this period, several new UCaaS solutions have also gotten introduced to the market. Thanks to the newfound demand for remote working technologies, Avaya and RingCentral, along with others, introduced UCaaS offerings. In the case of Avaya/RingCentral, the wheels of this deal have been in motion for some time, but COVID-19 likely gave the duo some inspiration to finish the offering and release it while demand was hot.

Al Castle

Al Castle

The entire situation has forced companies to reconsider the future of work, and what it might look like for employees. And it’s raised some serious questions, such as are offices necessary? COVID-19’s prompted many companies that didn’t have work-from-home policies, to scramble and put them in place, which many experts forecast will extend into the post-COVID-19 period.

“These changes aren’t temporary, and they’ll have long-lasting impacts for years to come.” The way Castle sees things, this will enable companies to scale WFH strategies to drive workflow and cultural developments that we’ll feel for years to come, changes that allow people to remain engaged, productive, and safe.

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