Death of the office landline: more than half of workers snub desk phones for mobiles

two thirds of employees take calls outside of office hours, finds Natterbox survey ~

More than half of workers now use their mobile phones in preference to their office landline marking a new era of remote and flexible working, research has revealed.
The survey by Natterbox, the cloud based voice service provider, has found that 53 per cent of staff conduct more calls on their mobile, signalling the end of the traditional desk phone.

It also revealed that mobile phone usage has now become so commonplace in UK businesses that almost two-thirds of employees (64 per cent) said their jobs demand them to take out hours of calls on their mobiles.

Neil Hammerton, CEO at Natterbox, said: “Mobile phone usage is evidently the way forward for businesses, especially with major events like the Olympics impacting on our working habits year. Flexible working is on the rise and people don’t just work from nine until five any longer.

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The research showed that as a consequence staff are taking calls in increasingly unusual places; almost seven out of 10 workers (68 per cent) admitted taking business calls in cafes, with 58 per cent dialling up in restaurants, and 46 per cent in bars. 17 per cent said they had taken work calls at a wedding reception and 11 per cent on the golf course.

The survey also revealed a trend for home and mobile working, with more than one in five respondents (21 per cent) working from home at least once a week. More than two-thirds of them (68 percent) said they used their mobiles to do this, compared with just four per cent who used a home phone only.

Hammerton continued: “Business is mobile these days so people need to be available – and have more access to information – when needed. This is why we advise firms to have measures in place like mobile call recording and integration with CRM systems. Calls need to be logged, archived and available for reporting and analytics, so that key business information isn’t lost.

“Companies have monitored web usage and email for years, but increasingly there is a need to track employee telephone activity too – on mobiles and landlines alike.”