Washington Works Blog

Email is necessary for your business to function, but it’s far from a perfect solution. In fact, you might experience all kinds of issues with it that can eat into your company’s productivity and put it at risk in more ways than one. We’re going to demystify two of the major problems that businesses experience with email so you can hopefully get your business back on track.

Business telephone systems are an interesting topic to consider these days. On one hand, you have the Internet, a sophisticated communication infrastructure that connects you with countless opportunities, but on the other, you have email and phone systems, which are direct lines to your business. At the end of the day, your customers will connect with you by phone—and as you might have guessed, how your business handles telephone calls matters.

Is your business’ technology hindering your employees, or is it making their jobs easier and more efficient? The right technology can go a long way toward improving the employee experience, morale, company culture, and most important of all, productivity. Let’s look at three ways technology makes for a better employee experience.

Let’s face it, your business probably can’t remember the last time it used that old fax machine sitting in the corner. It’s taking up precious time, money, and resources that could be reinvested into other parts of your business. Don’t believe us? Here are three reasons why you should ditch the fax machine.

Business technology can often put business owners in a tough spot. There are dozens of options out there in terms of hardware and software alike, each promising earth-shattering changes… many with an equally earth-shattering price tag.

This presents a significant dilemma for business owners. While the goal is to innovate and empower their teams, it can seem like many of these tools are simply not worth the investment, but at the same time, denying access feels like denying innovation.

The solution to this dilemma, however, is fortunately simple: leaning on data to inform your decisions and enable yourself to say the dreaded two-letter word: “no.”

The phone is a critical piece of business communications, but it has traditionally been a consistently stationary piece of technology for most of its existence. Basically, if you were anywhere but your desk, you couldn’t answer any important calls or listen to your messages.

Now that remote and hybrid work are pretty accepted, this is unacceptable, but there’s a far better option. Let’s explore how an upgrade to a modern Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone system is the route that savvy businesses take.

There are a lot of emojis out there, but sometimes you might find yourself in a situation where just one isn’t going to fulfill your needs. Google has created a Gboard mobile keyboard feature called Emoji Kitchen, allowing users to mix and match emojis in fun new ways. You can create new emojis by blending two together.

Skype is dead; long live Microsoft Teams.

At least, that’s the position that Microsoft has taken. The software company is discontinuing the two-decade-old communication application Skype, shifting focus to the more recent Teams platform, with the app’s last day being scheduled for May 5.

Let’s review what this means and reflect on Skype's impact on modern technology.

Good communication is essential for any business. It can be as basic as having a phone line or as advanced as using tools that help your business grow. For small businesses, communication can be challenging. Limited budgets, growing teams, and the need to stay flexible often make traditional systems too expensive or outdated. That’s where cloud-hosted communications come in as a modern and better option.

Many businesses today operate across the globe, thanks to fast Internet speeds that support remote work. By hiring workers from different parts of the world, companies can create and deliver their products or services more efficiently. In this blog, we’ll look at the key changes businesses need to make when working with remote teams.

Make no mistake about it, collaboration is an important part of nearly every business. Today, organizations are asked to do more with less and one of the best ways to do that is to build a great collaboration strategy. If there were no collaborative strategy, however, every task within the business would be delegated to a single person with a limited scope and mindset, placing a cap on both the task’s potential and the business’ potential. 

Email is undeniably a fantastic communication tool. However, there are certain things you should never share via email for safety reasons. Let’s explore what these are—because when it comes to security, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

We’ve seen the conference rooms of a lot of businesses, from the modified break-room with stale coffee to immaculate lecture rooms with plush, comfy seats, and everything in between.

A good conference room can do a lot to impress potential clients and customers, encourage collaboration within your team, and leave a great impression on potential employees too. While we’re not going to pretend to be interior decorators, there are definitely some important steps that we can assist with to make sure your conference room is up to the task.

Effective communication often operates behind the scenes, yet it serves as a vital cog in the smooth operational ability of business, lending support to a multitude of functions. Consequently, making judicious investments in the right tools can markedly elevate your business. In the contemporary landscape, one such indispensable tool is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Collaboration tools can be remarkably helpful for businesses, if not downright essential to their success. With the right tools that are, of course, configured the right way, you can see exponential returns on your investment as your staff enjoy the many benefits they provide. Today, we want to discuss four common pitfalls with your collaboration tool security that must be addressed.

Innovation is important to businesses because there are advancements in technologies and strategies that are made all the time that help to improve these businesses’ processes. Although there are several niche business communication strategies to consider—which may apply to your business—we’ve listed the top five universal strategies that all businesses should regard as critical:

Technology is only effective in the hands of the right—or, at least, well-trained—employees. To work toward this goal, you’ll have to ramp up your hiring processes to ensure you garner the interest of the right candidates for the jobs. Nowhere is this more true than for your IT department. Let’s go over how you can make your business an attractive employment option for skilled and innovative technicians.

Communication is a key part of doing business. Today, there are a variety of solutions devoted to improving your business’ communications strategy in some way, shape, or form. Here, we’ll go over the communications tools that businesses use today, and discuss why today’s business should be invested in most or all of them.

Today, there is a greater focus on mental health and wellbeing than ever before, especially in the shadow of the pandemic. Do you want to improve your employees’ relationships with their colleagues, family, and other important people in their lives? The key to doing so might be remote work, according to a new survey.

Costs are rising and companies need to do more with less. Not only that, they depend on several departments of their business to work together to meet customer demands and complete projects. Let’s take a look at some collaboration tips and the tools that can help build a better, more collaborative and productive business.