Why do you "NEED" WorkPlace for your business?

Virsage WorkPlace provides your company with a competitive advantage by saving your business both time and money.

There are three needs that WorkPlace fulfills.

•  Agility – Businesses must be able to react to change quickly.  Whether it is onboard/offboarding new employees, rolling out new software packages, or allowing workers to access their information from wherever they are – traditional IT is slower and more expensive than WorkPlace.
• Business Security – Companies today rely on data.  Any interruption in either connection, hardware or software costs money.  WorkPlace provides enterprise grade data and system access that was not previously cost effective.
• Productivity – Like it or not, employees are changing how they want to work.  Studies show that companies who embrace this change show an increase in overall employee productivity, lower overall wages as employees prefer flexible work environments over higher salarys

During the PC revolution era, companies strived to quickly integrate technology with their business to make their companies faster and more efficient, but over the last few years the constant cycle of buying new hardware and software every few years has left companies with upgrade fatigue. Historically, being on the cutting edge can be expensive, error prone, and time consuming. WorkPlace is a smarter way to upgrade your current technology, stay with the applications your staff has already learned how to use, and gain new features that enable to you work more productively and cooperatively than before.

WorkPlace saves your business time by ensuring your staff has access to all of the needed business applications, files, and emails from any device: PC, Mac, tablet, or smartphone. Most people have some sort of remote access currently, but usually along with a decreased experience or lack of features. WorkPlace enables you to be just as productive on the road as you are in the office. By having your team all on the same versions of software, and by having shared storage available quickly from anywhere, your team will spend far less time emailing documents back and forth and more time collaborating in real time. WorkPlace enables you to extend specific files quickly to customers and business partners as well outside of the WorkPlace system to make projects with external parties far easier to manage.

WorkPlace saves your company money by keeping you out of the cycle of PC obsolescence. You’ll never have to buy another server, or pay for a new “Microsoft tax” every 3 years for Windows and Office software.  These programs and the software licensing are included in your WorkPlace subscription. This ensures you always get the latest versions without having to make large capital expenditures. Because WorkPlace is a desktop as a service and support is included, you get immediate access to platform upgrades without having to manage traditional IT upgrades and headaches. New features, functionality, and increased system robustness are coming online all of the time, and are done behind the scenes without disruption to your business. WorkPlace enables your business to take legacy (older) programs and servers and bring them into the cloud era. This means you can get more life out of the software that you have already purchased and add features to programs.

For instance, "WorkPlace has enabled companies to take applications like POS systems, accounting platforms, electronic medical records, and sales tools and made them available on smart phones and iPads."

WorkPlace is a better way to manage your IT expenses. Why pay for more software, storage, or hardware than is really needed? With WorkPlace, you pay for what you really use and your pricing scales with your business. The pricing is predictable and consistent, and there are no long term contracts. The technology included with WorkPlace are systems we recommend for all companies, but few can afford to purchase and manage these systems in the traditional fashion. WorkPlace provides your business with industry leading infrastructure in an affordable format: Multiple data centers, redundant servers, high availability failover infrastructure, network attached storage, offsite replications and backups, web filtering, email filtering, spyware protection, antivirus, redundant Cisco firewalls, Microsoft Exchange email, Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, remote access, cross-platform support, professional network management and technical support.

Workshifting

Increase productivity and increase your bottom line. WORKSHIFTING

When does one shift end and another begin? How do you enjoy a mid morning ride or take time off to spend an hour or two at the library with your kids. When is the last time you went for a run at 9am? Or just had the opportunity to stay at home and work from there for the day?

                  

Personally I live and work seven days a week and I do so on my schedule with complete control of my workday. After spending several years running my own business I found that now working for a company again defiantly has its benefits and I enjoy it. I have tried working for a few companies prior to coming to Virsage and looking back I can honestly say that CONTROL of my workday was the primary thing that was missing in all of those opportunities.

So what does Workshifting mean and how do you make it work?

Workshifting is providing workers today with the ability to jump in and out of work at a moments notice and gives them agility to take the call or get out a quote on time, make adjustments to the document while at the park, and “take the call” wherever, whenever.

I have three little girls and I don’t want to miss out on what is happening in their life while providing a means for them to have a life. They keep me super busy and when Im not traveling I get to take them to the library and spend time with them at the park all while when its necessary sit down with my iPAD and phone to hammer out some business anywhere, anytime, on any device.

To not take advantage of the benefits of workshifting during my kids' summer vacation would be almost as criminal as not supervising them outdoors.

School is out now and I have a plan to make the most of our summer and still provide the support for my partners and customers they are requiring of me each and every day.

1. Start work early, take time off in the middle of the day for activities with the kids, and then finish my work later in the afternoon and evening.

2. Work 7 days a week and take off when I need to .

3 .Actually use some of my vacation days.

4. Take a laptop (or iPad, iPhone or Android tablet) with me and work from our vacation destination (if we ever decide on one).

5. Know when to say when and not take the call or look at my phone. Sometimes you just have to leave that device on the desk charging.

6. Enjoy a combination of all of the above. (I wish more dessert menus had this option!)

Keeping track of an employee who works flexible hours like these might seem like a manager's nightmare, but im not the only one who advocates summertime scheduling. A recent blog article from US News Money explains "How Summer Hours Make Employees More Productive."

Citirix sponsored a white paper based on our findings titled Workshifting Benefit: The Bottom Line (PDF 2.3Mb). For additional resources and research on workshifting, please visit Citrix Online’s blog, at workshifting.com

What we found is that by working at home just half time:

• Employees could save up to $7,000 and gain 2-3 weeks of family time each year.
• Businesses could save over $10,000 per employee, attract better qualified workers, and improve disaster preparedness.
• U.S. could reduce Gulf Oil imports 37%, reduce green house gas equivalent tof taking 10 million cars off the road, and prevent 100,000 traffic-related injuries or deaths.

How about you? Do you think a summer schedule would work for you? How do you plan to use workshifting to make the most of the long summer days? Get out of the office this summer and enjoy it. Life is too short to spend 60 hours a week in a office with 4 walls.

Photo Credit Undress for success.com