Real work in virtual offices

Citation

(2002), "Real work in virtual offices", Work Study, Vol. 51 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2002.07951eaf.006

Real work in virtual offices

Real work in virtual offices

The concept of the virtual office has been around for some time. Modern technology means that the concept is more convenient and can be extended to cover a wider range of services. Essentially a virtual office is an outsourced set of office services – this usually includes basic reception and secretarial services (answering telephones, preparing mail, etc.) but may include more "advanced services" – such as bookkeeping, managing travel services, managing trade show arrangements, etc. Such services may be marketed under a variety of names – personal virtual assistant seems to be one of the "trendier" titles.

Telephone calls can be dealt with by the virtual office or forwarded to you wherever you are – at home, in a serviced meeting room, at a hot desking station or … . A virtual secretary will maintain a diary – and because it is computerised, it can be downloaded to your own electronic diary/PDA over the Internet.

Modern communications technology means that voice messages, text messages, pager messages, faxes, etc. can all be forwarded by email to one address – or simply read out to you over the phone if you are technophobic! Using switch-forwarding telephone technology, the operator will know who is calling before they answer – and will have your company details on the screen of their console so that they represent you properly (according to the profile you have created). And, of course, all this can be integrated with your own hosted Website.

If your company has (or wishes to establish) an ecommerce operation, then a virtual office can handle the ordering – and even the warehousing and distribution services. These services are all done on your letterhead and invoice stationery. Transactions can be fully automated with no hands-on requirement from you.

The obvious advantage is the saving on real estate and on the capital costs of office equipment. Perhaps just as important is the ability to grow the range of services as your needs change. Particularly for growing businesses, this can be very important. It means that the entrepreneur starting a business from scratch can have the "presence" – and the real administrative support – of a professional office assistant.

Of course, there is also the "other side" of virtuality. Virtual office brokers can employ office assistants who themselves work from home – using technology to connect into the "office network". This means that staff who perhaps want part-time work, or who don't want to commute, can exploit their skills in a flexible way. Home network connectivity – via broadband and cable – mans that the quality of communications is assured. However, it is (or at least may be) important to consider information security and back-up policies. There are other issues such as maintaining technical currency and compatibility between the organisation and its virtual office – making sure the same versions of key software are in use, for example.

As with all outsourced services, it is important to have a clear service level agreement and an understanding of the exact scope of any agreement. Given this (and there are now sufficient operators of virtual office services with enough experience to make such issues fairly straightforward) the concept can work well.

See the Website of the International Association of Virtual Office Assistants (IAVOA) at: http://www.iavoa.com/