Today’s Virtual Office

17 Pages 4306 Words

In today’s corporate landscape, traditional office space is steadily becoming a thing of the past. Empty chairs and vacant cubicles provide the backdrop for much of today’s corporate floor space. Nothing more than little signs reading “Telecommuting Today” or “Virtual Office Day” hang from cubicle walls. Today’s workforce consists of employees who work from home, from their cars or from virtually anywhere. Advanced technologies and progressive HR strategies make these alternative offices possible.
Imagine it’s 7 am on a Monday morning. Inside the dining room of his regional office, John Sabrio, IT Manager, is enjoying his morning bagel and espresso while scribbling down voice mail messages and replying to dozens of email messages. In front of him is a Laptop — equipped with a network connection—connected to his high speed Cable Internet service which gives him network connectivity that’s always on and available with speeds that rival that of his companies intranet. The contents of his briefcase are spread on the table. As he sifts through a stack of paperwork and responds to incoming email, he periodically picks up a cordless phone and places a call to a customer or co-worker. As he talks, he sometimes wanders across the room. This is not your traditional Monday morning at work. Sabrio doesn’t have a permanent desk or workspace, nor his own telephone. When he enters a building on site, he locates any vacant conference room or cubicle, pops out his laptop, and connects his network cable to one of the companies convenient network jacks. Equipped with his laptop and mobile phone, Sabrio is equipped to do business on the spot - just about anywhere. It could be the Server Center, or a conference room on the 30th floor with a breathtaking view of the city and water. It could even be the home office or family room, which houses punching bags, big screen television and a pool table. Wherever he goes, a network forwa...