Unified communications solutions help promote usefulness of teleworking

Many of us can recollect the saying, “you should not take things for granted, because you never know when a situation will arise where that certain thing will be of use.” I am sure I have learned this lesson once or twice during my lifetime, however one scenario in particular not only relates to my personal life, but has also carried into my professional life as well. A quick anecdote will help you, the readers, understand how a brilliant telephony technology, known as the Mitel Teleworker Solution, for me, will never be taken for granted.

It was a typical Sunday evening - my fiancé and I were enjoying our quiet house after a weekend of festivities with our close friends. All of a sudden, I could hear a constant dripping noise from the heater vent, and, to our dismay, we noticed a puddle forming. We wondered what could cause this puddle, then it clicked as we walked out to our garage and noticed 30 gallons of water flushed into our garage. Our water heater had completely burst! What where we going to do? It was past operations hours on a Sunday - there would be no way anyone could help us solve our situation before Monday.

After a quick call to our home insurance emergency line, we learned the inevitable: one of us had to take a day off work to get a new water heater. But wait - I had a solution that would give me the best outcome. Due to the Mitel Teleworker Solution, I was able to work from home and get our new water heater installed. Most importantly, I did not have to miss a full day of work.

In part, the “teleworker solution,” for me, was simply being able to solve a household emergency; but the teleworker solution is not new to the telephony industry.

According to Toni Kistner, blogger forNetwork World Fusion, the term “telework” was formed by Jack Nilles, known as “The Father of Telecommuting” in the early 1970s, but teleworking did not become well known for its features and benefits until the late 1990’s, when the telephony industry began to notice the positive impact of the teleworker solution.

The benefits of teleworking, described in Mitel‘s Flexible Telework (Cultural Change Afoot in the Workplace whitepaper, fall into three well-known categories: “employee, company and societal benefits. Employee-related benefits are direct in terms of providing work life flexibility, reduced personal costs (fuel, work, and clothing) and zero commute times.”

On a company benefits level, researchers have found that companies are able to reduce their real estate cost by decreasing their overall office space requirements, productivity of an individual employee increases, and in some cases, teleworking can be used as a disaster/recovery plan in case of emergency or health related concerns.

Lastly, societal benefits of teleworking can be addressed by reducing the carbon dioxide emissions and traffic congestion. Even one of the leading teleworking solution manufacturers, Mitel, reports that nearly 40 percent of [their] North American employees telework, with each mile not traveled between home and work saving, on average, 1.1 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere has been decreased by their business model of using the telework solution.

Further, according to, Employees Frustrated with Long Commutes, “26 percent considered changing jobs to improve their commutes. Almost a quarter of respondents said they are late to work at least three times a month due to traffic.” With this technology, it is almost impractical to not have the teleworking option available for the people. Hopefully society will begin to see the value of teleworking, and be able to deploy this solution throughout the nation’s workforce.

So, whether you find yourself in an emergency household situation like me, or are fed up with gas prices, the daily commute, or feel like you could be more productive working out of the office, then this blog has made its impact. Encourage change within your office; the solution is out there for your taking. Like I said before, “you never know when a situation will arise where that certain thing will be of use.”