If your company doesn’t have deskphones by now, don’t buy them
So there’s a phone on my desk that presumably cost ReadyTalk a lot of money, but I’m going to be honest with everybody here: I don’t actually use it and I don’t really even want it. Ever since I said goodbye to my Sales role and joined our Innovation department last April, I have probably used the phone on my desk no more than 15 times. The last person I spoke with on my office phone was my Mom.
Oh, and by the way — it’s my job to do customer interviews (aka talking to people, usually on the phone) for said Innovation department and I still don’t want a deskphone.
I know I am not alone when I say that I hate talking on the phone. Many of my millennial kin are also averse to making phone calls.
It’s no surprise, then, that text-based communication services like Slack and Facebook Messenger have taken off with younger users who came up through the ranks of AOL Instant Messenger. Plus, I really like the iPhone I carry around with me everywhere anyway — why can’t I just use that for everything?
Well, for me and people like me, we are fortunate to live in the times of cloud communications with unified communications clients. SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: A robust hosted solution, like ReadyTalk’s Hosted Voice offering, can allow organizations to embrace BYOD, empower their workforce for mobility, prepare themselves for the future of communications, and turn them into a top destination for prospective employees.
Accepting that millennials will be dictating office behavior for the foreseeable future, let me explain why the move away from deskphones isn’t all bad for IT Directors (and maybe HR, too):
Embrace BYOD and empower your workforce for mobility
You know better than I do that BYOD isn’t going anywhere. When I was at my last company, an anti-virus provider, there was some fleeting hope that IT departments may be able to at least stem the tide of personal devices on professional networks. Alas, that never actually happened. The smartphone has revolutionized how we get work done, embrace that change and save yourself the headache of managing hardware while leaving upgrading devices to your end users.
Prepare yourself for the future of communications: video
Video isn’t coming anymore, it’s here. There will be no communication medium more important in the future of work than video (Shamless plug number 2: Our FoxDen product is pretty cool). You know what can’t do video right now? My deskphone. You know what can do video right now? The iPhone sitting on my desk.
Turn your company into a destination for the job seekers of the future
So there’s this whole remote work trend that’s really blowing up. More and more, folks are looking for flexibility from their employers as to where they can work. The number of websites for remote job seekers has exploded of late and the ability to offer a remote experience to employees is becoming a more important differentiator for employers. This is particularly salient considering the inches of snow we’re receiving in Denver today.
If you already have deskphones, don’t fret. The best part about a well-designed hosted voice solution is that it should be able to insert itself in your existing environment without any issues — all while driving the benefits outlined above. There is no need to rip out existing infrastructure, though a move to a hosted voice solution could provide a great opportunity for hardware consolidation. I mentioned above that I do customer interviews but I don’t use my deskphone — that’s because I typically take advantage of our huddle rooms (equipped with phones) for their privacy. Not only could you reduce the hardware you need to manage today, you can cut back on the hardware you have to buy in the future as employees can be provisioned on their smartphones. There will always be some employees who need a deskphone (Hello, Sales organizations across the globe) but even they can benefit from a softphone client on their personal devices.
To paraphrase Charlton Heston, “Let my people go [work wherever they want so they can be their most productive selves]!”
