How your Phone System Can Help you Manage Telecommuters

Many companies are turning to part-time or full-time at-home employees to save money. People who work from home typically cost less since they are saving on travel and gas. Hiring telecommuters is a great way to save money on office space and save the planet by removing cars from the roadways. Fewer cars means decreased emissions which could lower your companies overall carbon footprint. But, how can you make sure telecommuters are working? Without having them there in the office, many employers worry that they won't be able to monitor what the employee is doing short of putting a video camera on their computer. With a VoIP PBX system, it is easy to manage telecommuters by viewing call reports, listening to call recordings, and holding weekly conference calls with your telecommuters to discuss their work.

With a VoIP PBX system, telecommuters who are working outside the office are directly connected to the company phone system via the Internet. Just provide each of your telecommuters with a VoIP phone to use when they are working. You can easily setup their extension right in the web based VoIP PBX control panel. Once they have their own extension they can be added to call queues, hunt groups, and the company directory. They will be able to transfer calls from their phone to any other office phone and participate in any conference call just as if they were at the office.

Now that they are part of the companies phone system, you can view detailed reports on their calls and even record their calls. Recordings can be emailed to you immediately after they are recorded, or you can view them anytime on the web based control panel.

Using the extensive call reporting capabilities of the phone system, you can see when your employee took the first call, how many calls he/she took, how long each call was, how many calls they 'missed', and more.

Review call reports and listen to call recordings throughout the day or at the end of the day. Then talk to your employee the next morning in your scheduled conference call (setup in the web based control panel) and make your recommendations during the meeting based on your findings.

In conclusion, it has never been easier to manage telecommuters. With a VoIP PBX system like the one from www.press8.com, your telecommuters can be monitored, voice calls recorded, automatic daily audio conferences can be scheduled, and reports can be generated showing their activity on the company phone while working from home.