COVID-19 – 86% of UK SMEs Had to Overcome Telecoms Challenges
A new survey of 1,000 workers at UK SMEs, which was conducted by broadband ISP Onecom (vested interest), has found that 86% of respondents had to overcome “significant telecommunications challenges” (e.g. home working) in order to maintain as close to “business as normal” as possible during the COVID-19 crisis.
Apparently the biggest single challenge, which was faced by 50% of workers, stemmed from the issue of facilitating group calls or finding messaging platforms that worked for their team. Meanwhile 27% found it difficult to manage employees remotely and 25% experienced home-based interruptions (e.g. dealing with childcare, deliveries or being distracted by a partner).
The learning curve of new skills and wider difficulties also resulted in a rising occurrence of communications errors, at least initially, which affected 31% of respondents. The full table of results can be found below and as business adapt then it’s expected that many may choose to retain a greater level of home working going forward.
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| The most common communications and technology challenges that SMEs have overcome since the coronavirus lockdown | ||
| 1 | Facilitating group calls or finding messaging platforms that work for your team | 50% |
| 2 | Managing employees remotely | 27% |
| 3 | Home-based interruptions | 25% |
| 4 | Taking and receiving calls | 24% |
| 5 | Responding to and receiving emails | 23% |
| 6 | Getting to grips with too many different communications platforms | 22% |
| 7 | Communication issues due to lack of face-to-face time | 22% |
| 8 | Motivating employees remotely | 21% |
| 9 | Issues with broadband connection | 21% |
| 10 | Finding software that facilitates remote working | 20% |
| 11 | Facilitating client or supplier calls | 18% |
| 12 | Meeting the social needs of the team/staff | 17% |
| 13 | Managing team priorities | 16% |
| 14 | Lack of available hardware (e.g. computers, phones) for staff | 15% |
| 15 | Managing when employees work (e.g. employees working too late or not enough) | 15% |
| 16 | Having to re-engineer work that has traditionally been done in person | 14% |
| 17 | Maintaining robust security | 14% |
| 18 | Getting access to industry or company-specific software applications from home | 13% |
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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‘telecommunications’???
As per Wikipedia: “Telecommunication is the exchange of signs, signals, messages, words, writings, images and sounds or information of any nature by wire, radio, optical or other electromagnetic systems.”
Where did the 86% come from? ‘Home-based interruptions’ is not telecomms!