The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 introduced a new offence of corporate manslaughter which applies to corporate bodies in both the public and private sectors. It only applies in circumstances where an organisation owed a duty of care to the victim under the law of negligence. The offence can be punishable by an unlimited fine and orders for remedial action.
This law makes it easier for an organisation to be found guilty of manslaughter through the result of gross failings of senior management. The definition of ‘senior management' is not limited to the board of directors and includes those who have a significant role in the management of the whole or part of an organisation.
The HSWA imposes a duty on employers to "ensure so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety and welfare at work of all its employees" and to ensure that persons not in their employment are "not exposed to risks to their health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable".
In addition, there are hundreds of health and safety regulations which set out more specific health and safety duties. For example, under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employers must carry out a 'suitable and sufficient' risk assessment of their activities. As a result of this new law, duty of care and traceability must become a priority to senior managers in any organisation both in the public and private sector.
Risk assessment - Risk assessment has become a key process in the protection of the mobile workforce. A risk assessment is an important step in protecting the workforce as well as complying with the law. A risk assessment is a careful examination of what could cause harm whilst undertaking job functions. This allows the decision to be made as to whether or not enough precautions are being taken or whether more should be taken. Workers and others have a right to be protected from harm caused by a failure to take reasonable control measures.
A correctly deployed enterprise mobility solution will provide any mobile workforce with an effective tool to undertake risk assessments at key stages of their daily duties whilst out of the office. Not only this, the enterprise mobility solution will provide a traceable record for each risk assessment undertaken for that all important proof of compliance.
The Corporate Manslaughter Act has increased the need for health based services to provide duty of care on their employees whether mobile or otherwise and makes it easier for local authorities in breach to be prosecuted.
Proof of compliance will ultimately become a necessity and it will be up to senior managers to prove duty of care policies and procedures are working and are being used by their employees. Paper systems are problematic as mistakes can be made and paper proof can easily be lost. use of enterprise mobility solutions in providing duty of care compliance and lone worker protection will therefore become more prevalent over the next 18 months.
If you have already deployed an enterprise mobility solution or if you are planning to do so, ensure that you build in duty of care into your mobility workflows. For further advice relating to how Mobilitiy Solutions can support your business please contact mBusiness Consulting.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Business - Mobile Working allowing business to break out
Extending the perimeter of the organisation through mobilisation, is a key requirement for many companies to stay competitive and mobile computing will inevitably be one of the top technological issues affecting your business. Studies completed by Computer Weekly indicates that remote working is able to reduce the financial impact for those companies that have enabled it, but very few small and medium businesses have the budget or technical ability to implement and manage secure virtual private networks (VPNs) with sophisticated network access control.
Remote working - how risky is it and what can small businesses do to enable it securely?
For many organisations, employees not being able to get into the workplace due to unforseen circumstances such as heavy snow, sick children or other such incidents is often translated into a business day of inactivity. Without the technology to pick up e-mail, access information, or even change face to face meetings into conference calls, many organisations will grind to a halt.
So what stops an organisation joining the 21st century? Invariably cost and lack of knowledge. To enable remote working the first step is always recognising the need. Extending the perimeter for an organisation is a bold step, and one which needs to be considered carefully. Employees may well demand the ability to pick up e-mail from anywhere, but such a move must be based on careful evaluation between risks and benefits, not solely demand.
However, a move like this is not a binary decision. There are varying degrees of remote working, ranging from webmail, to access to all files, and everything else in-between. Technology requirements will of course be dependent on the level of access required. Although the cost may be lower than initially thought. For example, many SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) firewalls have remote connectivity features enabled either by default or via licence activation. Equally, web mail is also available as a default feature in many popular mail systems.
Of course, just because it is there does not mean a tick in the box is all that is needed. Extending the perimeter does have its risks, and appropriate security controls must be applied to mitigate/reduce these risks. These decisions involve authentication considerations, access times, locking down endpoints, etc. This may be seen as a step too far for many small businesses, mBusiness Consulting can provide the necessary expertise to help plug the gap.
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
Remote working - how risky is it and what can small businesses do to enable it securely?
For many organisations, employees not being able to get into the workplace due to unforseen circumstances such as heavy snow, sick children or other such incidents is often translated into a business day of inactivity. Without the technology to pick up e-mail, access information, or even change face to face meetings into conference calls, many organisations will grind to a halt.
So what stops an organisation joining the 21st century? Invariably cost and lack of knowledge. To enable remote working the first step is always recognising the need. Extending the perimeter for an organisation is a bold step, and one which needs to be considered carefully. Employees may well demand the ability to pick up e-mail from anywhere, but such a move must be based on careful evaluation between risks and benefits, not solely demand.
However, a move like this is not a binary decision. There are varying degrees of remote working, ranging from webmail, to access to all files, and everything else in-between. Technology requirements will of course be dependent on the level of access required. Although the cost may be lower than initially thought. For example, many SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) firewalls have remote connectivity features enabled either by default or via licence activation. Equally, web mail is also available as a default feature in many popular mail systems.
Of course, just because it is there does not mean a tick in the box is all that is needed. Extending the perimeter does have its risks, and appropriate security controls must be applied to mitigate/reduce these risks. These decisions involve authentication considerations, access times, locking down endpoints, etc. This may be seen as a step too far for many small businesses, mBusiness Consulting can provide the necessary expertise to help plug the gap.
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
Monday, 7 September 2009
Remote Working - How to Make it Work
Remote working can be a scary experience for both employers and employees. For employees it has the potential to be a lonely existence with little contact from real people on a face 2 face level. Managers struggle to understand how to manage a remote and geographically dispersed team. However with the correct technology, the right skills and attitude it is a fantastic way to deliver the business objectives whilst at the same time creating a flexible organisation, which also delivers against the green revolution, improves employee satisfaction and reduces reliance on expensive new office space and overbearing IT infrastructure.
A very large number of organsiations now use remote working ranging from large corporate account management & Project management teams, lone contractors, helpdesks and many others to numerous to mention. There are many strong business reasons for seriously considering remote working as a viable option including reorganisation, reducing office space, putting staff nearer to their customers and of course to create a disaster recovery plan in the event of a flu pandemic.
On top of ensuring that you have the best technology to deliver a remote working policy it is as important to ensure that you develop a structured approach to managing communications. Margaret Burnside, Director at the centre for People Development has suggested some simple guiding principles for successful remote working.
Remote Working Checklist
A very large number of organsiations now use remote working ranging from large corporate account management & Project management teams, lone contractors, helpdesks and many others to numerous to mention. There are many strong business reasons for seriously considering remote working as a viable option including reorganisation, reducing office space, putting staff nearer to their customers and of course to create a disaster recovery plan in the event of a flu pandemic.
On top of ensuring that you have the best technology to deliver a remote working policy it is as important to ensure that you develop a structured approach to managing communications. Margaret Burnside, Director at the centre for People Development has suggested some simple guiding principles for successful remote working.
Remote Working Checklist
- Hold an initial face-to-face start up meeting
- Have periodic face2face meetings
- Establish a code of conduct or set of norms - and as the leader ensure they are adhered to
- Chair conference calls carefully, allowing time to discuss audio quality and any problems with it
- Use the reply all function appropriately on emails so that other team members can follow the whole conversation
- Ensure all team members schedules are visible - ensure the tools exist to show when people are on holiday, at conferences etc
- Creat a "water cooler" equivalent on a shared access site for social chit chat on non work topics - encourage this - send the message that social chat is ok just as it is in the office
- Don't just visit the remote sites when there is a problem
- Watch out for little thingd that can leave people feeling isolated - avoid "out of sight out of mind" syndrome
- Review how well the team is working - use a conference call or face2face meeting solely to discuss team effectiveness encourage feedback on your leadership
Sunday, 6 September 2009
5 Points to consider when deploying Converged voice and Data services
A recent report, CIO Guide to Fixed Mobile Convergance, outlines the importance of organisations understanding of what benefits can be gained for your business by bringing together your mobile and fixed line communications. This understanding is a pre-requisite to ensure that you choose the right platform. It should be "future proofed", secure, build on your existing infrastructure, enhance your workforces capabilities and provide a measurable cost benefit. It is only by prioritizing these reasons can you ensure that the solution you select is the correct one for your business. The top 5 points to consider are:-
1. Productivity
Increasing productivity is one of the most important drivers for implementing converged solution. With on-the-spot access to your organization’s fixed systems, mobile professionals can make more informed decisions. Having a single phone number that customers and colleagues can use to reach your employees no matter where they are means they are never out of touch. Workers can collaborate more quickly by accessing familiar desktop phone features like call transfer and extension dialing right from the mobile device. If a call is missed, having a single voice mail box means workers spend less time managing multiple messaging systems.
2. Security
Wireless solution security helps to address the need to transmit voice and data in a highly secure manner through encryption, authentication, authorization, access control and firewall protection down to the wireless device level. As wireless solutions continue to build momentum and the subsequent number of wireless devices grows, the demand to manage and secure these solutions increases.
Converged solutions are designed to extend the security and control of your fixed voice network to mobile devices. With highly secure access, your organization can minimize the likelihood that it could be the target of mobile malware attacks, conference call snooping and other unauthorized access. Validation of a user’s voice network credentials over an encrypted data channel between the mobile device and the organization’s servers is leading edge technology and provides a highly secure solution.
3. Future Proofing
Most organizations have made significant investments in voice technologies, but voice communication is always changing and improving. Plotting a path to take advantage of innovation can help your organization maintain control while increasing employee freedom.
Converged Solutions allow your organization to leverage existing infrastructure by integrating mobile devices with fixed PBX-based desk phone functionality. Solutions that support multiple and mixed network technologies (IP/TDM) allow you to extend the life of your existing telecom capital investments while leaving the door open to new ones. Whether you are adding to your voice network or migrating to a new one, the right Converged solution should provide a simple upgrade path that helps keep costs in check.
4. Competitive Advantage
Enabling your mobile workforce to use their mobile device as a highly secure mobile desk phone allows them to answer customer queries faster, to beat competition and to help your organization grow in a global economy. Converged Solutions allows your organization to maintain ownership and control of its telephone numbers, making them a managed asset that customers and vendors are familiar with and that never leaves even when employees do. How frequent is this example, a customer knows a sales representative’s personal mobile phone number and that sales person moves to a competitor, the customer’s loyalty stays with the sales person resulting in the customer following the the sales person rather than staying with your organization.
5. Cost
A Converged Solution opens the door to a variety of cost-control opportunities. In some cases, calls placed from mobile phones to long-distance and international endpoints can be costly. The ability to extend class-of-service control to your organization’s mobile devices allows you to permit and restrict access to services like international and long-distance calling or pay-per-use (i.e., information) services. With Converged Solutions, you can further reduce costs by implementing policies that route mobile calls through your PBX and across the lowest-cost negotiated rate fixed-line networks. Directing mobile calls through your PBX also allows you to audit mobile usage through advanced reporting features which help to reduce time and cost associated with business use billing. These reports can help you better understand current usage patterns, allowing you to plan strategically for future mobile workforce expansion.
Equipping staff with the right tools can enhance productivity, motivation and staff retention. Highly secure mobile email and data applications help mobile workers stay in touch and up-to-date with a wide range of business issues. Extending that streamlined anytime, anywhere access to mobile voice applications is the next frontier in worker empowerment.
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
1. Productivity
Increasing productivity is one of the most important drivers for implementing converged solution. With on-the-spot access to your organization’s fixed systems, mobile professionals can make more informed decisions. Having a single phone number that customers and colleagues can use to reach your employees no matter where they are means they are never out of touch. Workers can collaborate more quickly by accessing familiar desktop phone features like call transfer and extension dialing right from the mobile device. If a call is missed, having a single voice mail box means workers spend less time managing multiple messaging systems.
2. Security
Wireless solution security helps to address the need to transmit voice and data in a highly secure manner through encryption, authentication, authorization, access control and firewall protection down to the wireless device level. As wireless solutions continue to build momentum and the subsequent number of wireless devices grows, the demand to manage and secure these solutions increases.
Converged solutions are designed to extend the security and control of your fixed voice network to mobile devices. With highly secure access, your organization can minimize the likelihood that it could be the target of mobile malware attacks, conference call snooping and other unauthorized access. Validation of a user’s voice network credentials over an encrypted data channel between the mobile device and the organization’s servers is leading edge technology and provides a highly secure solution.
3. Future Proofing
Most organizations have made significant investments in voice technologies, but voice communication is always changing and improving. Plotting a path to take advantage of innovation can help your organization maintain control while increasing employee freedom.
Converged Solutions allow your organization to leverage existing infrastructure by integrating mobile devices with fixed PBX-based desk phone functionality. Solutions that support multiple and mixed network technologies (IP/TDM) allow you to extend the life of your existing telecom capital investments while leaving the door open to new ones. Whether you are adding to your voice network or migrating to a new one, the right Converged solution should provide a simple upgrade path that helps keep costs in check.
4. Competitive Advantage
Enabling your mobile workforce to use their mobile device as a highly secure mobile desk phone allows them to answer customer queries faster, to beat competition and to help your organization grow in a global economy. Converged Solutions allows your organization to maintain ownership and control of its telephone numbers, making them a managed asset that customers and vendors are familiar with and that never leaves even when employees do. How frequent is this example, a customer knows a sales representative’s personal mobile phone number and that sales person moves to a competitor, the customer’s loyalty stays with the sales person resulting in the customer following the the sales person rather than staying with your organization.
5. Cost
A Converged Solution opens the door to a variety of cost-control opportunities. In some cases, calls placed from mobile phones to long-distance and international endpoints can be costly. The ability to extend class-of-service control to your organization’s mobile devices allows you to permit and restrict access to services like international and long-distance calling or pay-per-use (i.e., information) services. With Converged Solutions, you can further reduce costs by implementing policies that route mobile calls through your PBX and across the lowest-cost negotiated rate fixed-line networks. Directing mobile calls through your PBX also allows you to audit mobile usage through advanced reporting features which help to reduce time and cost associated with business use billing. These reports can help you better understand current usage patterns, allowing you to plan strategically for future mobile workforce expansion.
Equipping staff with the right tools can enhance productivity, motivation and staff retention. Highly secure mobile email and data applications help mobile workers stay in touch and up-to-date with a wide range of business issues. Extending that streamlined anytime, anywhere access to mobile voice applications is the next frontier in worker empowerment.
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Communications for a Mobile Workforce
Mobile working has transformed the business world, stimulating innovation, improving productivity and creating new opportunities. Industry analyst estimates suggest the mobile workforce could exceed 800 million in 2009. These workers can spend as much as 40% of their time away from their desk, complicating their communication needs and draining productivity. As businesses look to do more and encourage the best from their workforce, flexible, on-demand access to information has become a requirement. (http://zones.computerworld.com/rim2/downloads/RIM_CIO_Brochure_wp.pdf)
Equipping staff with the right tools can enhance productivity, motivation and staff retention. Highly secure mobile email and data applications help mobile workers stay in touch and up-to-date with a wide range of business issues. Extending that streamlined anytime, anywhere access to mobile voice applications is the next frontier in worker empowerment. Organizations seeking solutions that provide high-performance access while addressing security needs can leverage fixed mobile convergence (FMC) systems to enhance communication.
Mobile workers typically juggle multiple phone numbers, devices and voice mail systems which leave them cut off from familiar workplace functionality like extension dialing, directory searches and call transfers.
Managing these devices and messaging systems requires additional time that workers could use for other tasks. Clients and colleagues often must dial multiple phone numbers to reach mobile workers which creates communication delays. A robust wireless solution should unite a user’s identity, different devices and network technologies to give mobile workers the ability to communicate to and from multiple locations while appearing to be at a single location. Unified Communications for voice should merge the capabilities of the desk and mobile phones to make your organization’s voice capabilities just as mobile as email and data, so mobile workers can be reached at a single phone number, manage a single voice mail box, access advanced desk phone features and transition calls to and from the desk phone no matter where they are.
Understanding why bringing together your mobile and fixed-line communication systems can benefit your
organization is an important part of choosing the right platform. The solution you select should fit seamlessly
into, and help secure, your existing voice network, be scalable for future growth and technologies, have a
recognizable cost benefit and enhance your workforce’s capabilities beyond solutions you may have already
implemented. Identifying and prioritizing these reasons can help drive you to a solution that best fits your
organization’s needs.
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
Equipping staff with the right tools can enhance productivity, motivation and staff retention. Highly secure mobile email and data applications help mobile workers stay in touch and up-to-date with a wide range of business issues. Extending that streamlined anytime, anywhere access to mobile voice applications is the next frontier in worker empowerment. Organizations seeking solutions that provide high-performance access while addressing security needs can leverage fixed mobile convergence (FMC) systems to enhance communication.
Mobile workers typically juggle multiple phone numbers, devices and voice mail systems which leave them cut off from familiar workplace functionality like extension dialing, directory searches and call transfers.
Managing these devices and messaging systems requires additional time that workers could use for other tasks. Clients and colleagues often must dial multiple phone numbers to reach mobile workers which creates communication delays. A robust wireless solution should unite a user’s identity, different devices and network technologies to give mobile workers the ability to communicate to and from multiple locations while appearing to be at a single location. Unified Communications for voice should merge the capabilities of the desk and mobile phones to make your organization’s voice capabilities just as mobile as email and data, so mobile workers can be reached at a single phone number, manage a single voice mail box, access advanced desk phone features and transition calls to and from the desk phone no matter where they are.
Understanding why bringing together your mobile and fixed-line communication systems can benefit your
organization is an important part of choosing the right platform. The solution you select should fit seamlessly
into, and help secure, your existing voice network, be scalable for future growth and technologies, have a
recognizable cost benefit and enhance your workforce’s capabilities beyond solutions you may have already
implemented. Identifying and prioritizing these reasons can help drive you to a solution that best fits your
organization’s needs.
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
SMS - Are you getting the most ??
I have continually discussed with customers that SMS is not yet dead and can be a major contributing technology in driving improved customer experiences. The following report by Boomcomms supports the situation that businesses are not utilising the humble SMS to its full potential.
Two-Way SMS Herald New Business Opportunity say Boomcomms
Peter Tanner, Managing Director of Boomcomms, believes the potential of the humble text message has been largely lost on the business world – until now.
“As the frenzy over Twitter continues, the realisation of just what can be achieved in a targeted 160-character message is beginning to dawn on businesses. A number of transactions can be completed using a BlackBerry or email; however this requires a big investment, rendering the opportunity impractical for a majority.
An increasing number of companies are now using one-way SMS to confirm appointments or delivery times. But the critical challenge they all face is how to enable the recipient to respond in a way that closes the loop and completes an automated database transaction.
By simply adding a unique two-way SMS facility onto an existing business process, the automated workflow is successfully extended, boosting the customer/employee experience, without increasing costs. With two-way SMS the business possibilities are endless; authorisations and job status updates can be verified and confirmed in an instant, automatically triggering the next action in the database.
The significant development making all of this possible is the introduction of a solution that couples an incoming text message with the original outgoing message. This means the content of that reply can be fed back directly into the organisation’s database so that the next step in the process can be taken - all without any intervention by a human processor.
With the ‘reply’ conundrum addressed, SMS promises to be a small but significant revolution in the business-customer/business-employee relationship - breaking down boundaries, enabling direct interaction and bringing greater speed and efficiency into the equation.”
Are you getting the most out of your SMS potential?
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
http://www.mbusinessconsulting.com/
Two-Way SMS Herald New Business Opportunity say Boomcomms
Peter Tanner, Managing Director of Boomcomms, believes the potential of the humble text message has been largely lost on the business world – until now.
“As the frenzy over Twitter continues, the realisation of just what can be achieved in a targeted 160-character message is beginning to dawn on businesses. A number of transactions can be completed using a BlackBerry or email; however this requires a big investment, rendering the opportunity impractical for a majority.
An increasing number of companies are now using one-way SMS to confirm appointments or delivery times. But the critical challenge they all face is how to enable the recipient to respond in a way that closes the loop and completes an automated database transaction.
By simply adding a unique two-way SMS facility onto an existing business process, the automated workflow is successfully extended, boosting the customer/employee experience, without increasing costs. With two-way SMS the business possibilities are endless; authorisations and job status updates can be verified and confirmed in an instant, automatically triggering the next action in the database.
The significant development making all of this possible is the introduction of a solution that couples an incoming text message with the original outgoing message. This means the content of that reply can be fed back directly into the organisation’s database so that the next step in the process can be taken - all without any intervention by a human processor.
With the ‘reply’ conundrum addressed, SMS promises to be a small but significant revolution in the business-customer/business-employee relationship - breaking down boundaries, enabling direct interaction and bringing greater speed and efficiency into the equation.”
Are you getting the most out of your SMS potential?
paul@mbusinessconsulting.com
http://www.mbusinessconsulting.com/
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