Physical health and fitness have, for a long time, been the determining factors of whether someone is well enough to perform their duties within the workplace. After all, an employee who is in peak health would certainly outperform their flu-ridden colleague, and a door-to-door salesman wouldn’t be expected to carry out their duties with a broken leg.

More recently, the focus has shifted to wellness that we can’t always see. Poor mental health frequently doesn’t have physical symptoms but can have as much of an adverse effect, if not more, on the productivity and performance of an employee. It can often lead to absenteeism or presenteeism, both of which harm your business.

Absenteeism: The habitual absence from work over a prolonged period.

Presenteeism: Being physically present at work but not functioning at peak productivity.

Employees with improved mental health are more engaged and committed; they will make more informed decisions and are more likely to have innovative and creative ideas. Additionally, when someone feels they have further control over their workload, motivation increases boosting productivity and performance and driving your business forward.

How can you create a culture at work to promote stronger mental health?

One of the key drivers of poor mental health in the workplace is the work-life balance. As a result, your company policies on this subject will be of great importance to potential job candidates, and at times even more so than prospective salary.

HR and payroll software provider CIPHR polled over 1,000 UK workers to find out which job aspects matter most to them. The report reveals that the top three most important aspects of a job, ranked by popularity, are:

• Work-life balance
• Pay and benefits
• Job security

Where employees feel the need to be ‘always on’, presenteeism is becoming more common due to a false economy which results in less productivity. Subsequently, they no longer feel connected in either the workplace or their personal lives, leading to burnout.

Often this feeling is unknowingly promoted by the actions of leaders within an organisation, such as not taking breaks, or responding to emails outside of working hours. It is important that the work-life balance forms a core part of company values, and that you enable your employees to feel More Present in the moment, both at home and in the workplace.

Improving the balance means employees can spend more time away from work doing things that they enjoy, and when they return, they’re refreshed and ready to go.

Quick wins in this area are:

• Taking the time to actively listen to your workforce on how the current balance affects them and identify any obvious opportunities to improve it, both individually and as a department.
• Introducing walking meetings or external coffee breaks, encouraging employees to take time away from the screen.
• Avoiding burnout by raising its awareness and educating employees on early warning signs, not just in themselves, but in each other.

A more favoured and longer-term solution, however, is offering your employees a successful method of hybrid working.

What does a successful hybrid work model look like?

Be it Remote-first, Office-occasionally or Office-first, a hybrid model encourages flexible and blended working from different locations. This can be an official arrangement between employer and employee, or something more ad-hoc.

Hybrid working is one of the more successful methods of promoting a healthy work-life balance for your staff for many reasons:

• The time saved on commuting can be spent with friends and family or doing something they enjoy.
• Worries about having to rearrange appointments are eased with a more flexible calendar.
• Shifting surroundings at work can often give a new perspective, increase productivity and enhance focus.

Without the right processes and technology in place, however, there can be some negative effects of hybrid working, such as:

• Management of call handling can become more difficult without workforce visibility, with an increased risk of customer calls going unanswered.
• Unreliable access to vital business applications can often cause frustration and reduce productivity.
• Collaboration becomes more difficult when teams are not present in the room, with the risk of some employees being left out of the loop.
• Newer members of staff may feel isolated from their colleagues and line manager.

What tools can you provide your hybrid workers to enable them to Be More Present?

Having established that hybrid working enables people to Be More Present in both their work and personal lives, how can you ensure your employees can execute every function of their job wherever they are? The answer lies in using the right technology for both communication and connectivity.

Cloud-based Hosted Telephony

Offer your employees the ability to take their office set up home with them. A hosted handset will work wherever there is a broadband connection, alternatively use a mobile app to enable the transfer of calls onto a personal device without creating diverts. Removing the need to commute to the office frees up time for personal needs, without taking time away from the working day.

Microsoft Teams

We have seen the rise of Microsoft Teams during the pandemic, not just for the video conferencing aspect, but for collaboration, scheduling and file sharing. Whole departments can communicate via chat groups and conference rooms, no matter where they are working, and receive real-time views and responses; no more lengthy email trails where aspects of the conversation can be easily lost or veer off in another direction.

Most importantly, Teams offers employees an opportunity to communicate effectively in a face-to-face environment, building strong working relationships, regardless of where they are in the world.

5G

Where it’s not possible to rely on broadband, 5G can provide a fast and reliable connection that businesses can use just about anywhere. Connectivity hubs powered by 5G SIMs allow multiple devices to connect, creating an office space in minutes.

Why NSN is best suited to support your hybrid workforce

We have been specialists in bringing people and technology together to create positive change since 1965. With both the tools and the experience to optimise your connectivity, we will help you achieve greater heights of efficiency and productivity.

Our suite of communication services enables you to work seamlessly across video, mobile and VoIP telephony, helping you to be wherever your customers need you to be, whenever they need you to be there.

Allow your staff the flexibility to work from anywhere and benefit from the impact it has on their work/life balance.

Call us today on 087 135 9703 to find out how we will empower your staff to Be More Present in work, life and in the moment, generating the productivity and performance results your business deserves.

As your partner and solutions provider, we have made a solemn oath to bring you more. How poetic that it may be the single biggest shift in the telecommunications industry since the invention of the telephone. What might that be, you guessed it 5G, with speed up to 575Mbps for your organisation and home.

What is 5G

5G is the next generation of mobile internet connectivity, offering faster speeds and more reliable connections on smartphones and other devices than ever before. 5G is expected to supercharge the Internet of Things (IoT), providing the infrastructure needed to carry huge amounts of data in real-time, enabling a smarter and More Connected world!

 Benefits of Upgrading to 5G

The main advantages of the 5G are a greater speed in the transmissions, a lower latency and therefore greater capacity of remote execution, a greater number of connected devices and the possibility of implementing virtual networks, providing more adjusted connectivity to concrete needs.

• Faster, more reliable 5G mobile connections means you and your team can work flexibly and still stay super productive.
• 5G networks allow small businesses to join up the dots with their customer experience, both online and offline.
• New technology could become far more accessible to small businesses, thanks to 5G.
• 5G is already transforming automation, logistics and connectivity across the globe, and looks set to do the same for small businesses in the SA.

To Upgrade to 5G with NSN, Click Here

 Join New Star Networks Affinity Partner Program

Grow your business by becoming New Star Networks Affinity Partner.

Start your expedition to a worthwhile partnership giving you the opportunity to increase cost-effectiveness

New Star Networks Business Partners benefit from the convenience of no contracts, and you’ll have full control of your timeframes, so you decide how and when your clients receive their service.

Join Here

At New Star Networks, we see Telecoms as our expertise, but Customer Service is our forte.  When asked how we achieve our 99.5% retention rate and 5* Hellopeter rating, the answer is simple…everything we do is designed around our customer’s experience from start to finish.

We make ourselves easy to reach – 4 rings and you are connected with your own personal Account Manager.

We provide a broad spectrum of products, across different networks, to ensure you have the complete telecoms solution – just one invoice to process and one point of contact for anything telecoms related.

We recognise that although the price is important, having suppliers that deliver a great product and great support is vital to how we deliver our own experience; so, we work with our Partners and Suppliers to ensure that we receive the best service from them, for the best price possible.

Fundamentally though, what makes us stand out is our flexible approach in everything we do.  We see every customer for who they are and what they do, and we aim to be as accommodating to their circumstance as we can.  Our customers are not experts in the field of telecoms, they are experts in their own field, so we give them all the benefits of using their favourite networks, without having to deal with their favourite networks.

In a nutshell, at New Star Networks, we make the experience as simple as possible for our customers, we focus on their telecoms needs so that they can focus on the rest. To read more about this in our existing customers’ own words, please visit our Hellopeter page.

If you would like to find out more about how New Star Networks can help your business, contact Wesley on wesley@nsn.co.za. and our team of experts will be happy to discuss the most appropriate solution for your business.

Can choosing the right channel partner skyrocket your business? The answer is unequivocally yes! After 20 years of being in this industry the one thing I know to be essential to success is having the right partnerships in place.

In 2003 I took the leap from direct selling to channel sales in IT distribution. The space was booming yet saturated which made getting constant traction in the market tricky to pull off. The turning point for me was when we took the time to understand what the partner had to offer their client and how we could strategically align ourselves better to support our partners.

I embarked on a mission to establish a channel partner program with serious momentum by asking one simple question:

Who is the customer?

Many businesses don’t fully know who their customer is, what drives them or what they value the most in their purchasing strategy.

WESLEY SWART

CHANNEL DIRECTOR, NSN

My mission was to understand my partners existing go-to market approach and how they were winning new customers at their best.

From there we mirrored the partners unique way of winning loyalty, layering our products into their customers in exactly the same way i.e. how their customers prefer to buy from them. The Channel partner then believed in our service offering and would begin to launch more of our services to their customers.

What they wanted was to create business deals and add services that would bring in high revenue streams.

The end user focus is on the people who would in turn be using these services. They wanted a high end, quality product with uninterrupted service.

How do we implement this new Channel Partner program at NSN today?

Our aim is to always be providing the tools to assist the partner in delivering value added services to all their customers, using both pre and post sales techniques.

• Pre-sales – presentations, webinars and training sessions set up to assist the partner in executing the perfect pitch to their customers and in turn getting the deal closed and ready for provisioning.
• Post sales – following the conclusion of the contract, we would work together with the partner and focus on the execution delivering a great service with great success.

By choosing the correct channel partner you want to ensure that the company has a comprehensive strategy in place. Our go-to market strategy is flawless and ruthless. Simply put, you want a service/ product with all the backend management, we will provide you with exactly that. In fact, we’ve worked hard to optimize all of our product offerings to fit every client’s specific needs.

With our extensive marketing background and go-to market support we can offer you the best strategies to ensure that you will be able to achieve and exceed your goals. Furthermore, with over R4 million paid in partner commissions this year alone, our partners results speak for themselves.

The simplicity that comes with choosing NSN as your channel partner, provides you with everything you need, backed by our unique partner success guarantee. Call us today to find out how choosing NSN was the last decision you needed to make before your business went to the next level.

Our partner guarantee isn’t just as a company that excels at delivering value, but also from my team and I who value the trust of our partners.. it’s not just business… it’s personal.


Get a taste of SUCCESS! Send me an email on wesley@nsn.co.za.

WESLEY SWART
CHANNEL DIRECTOR

As a channel only business, our channel partners (dealers) are at the heart of NSN and what we do.

Through our Exclusive Affinity Marketing, we release our live marketing calendar quarterly in advance to our partners so they are fully aware of our themes for each month and the dates for our webinars, training, social media activity and any mailers available for co-branding to send to their customer base – providing the dates and themes in advance allows our partners to plan and generally be available for key releases from NSN

Since we started releasing a quarterly calendar

we have seen attendances on our webinars increase by 60% so clearly forward planning is working!

In a catch up Teams meeting I had with Mark Shraga (our Managing Director), we discussed how we could be adding even more value to our Channel Partners. We decided that whilst the webinars are a super important part of our engagement and will continue on a monthly basis, what if our partners felt that they needed a more private engagement to discuss matters away from the rest of our partner channel in a more confidential setting? After a couple of coffees we decided to launch the ‘Dealer Drop In Clinic’ for the month of July offering 30 minute slots throughout 2 Fridays for the partners to join their BDM and myself on a Teams call to discuss literally anything that is on their mind

The pilot scheme was a resounding success, one of the first partners who joined stated ‘that was the most valuable and productive 30 minutes I have had in business for as long as I remember’

The call allows for partners to discuss any pertinent any service related issues, receive updates on any key provisioning tickets, set up a WhatsApp group for quick access to the Senior Management Team amongst other items, then I can chat through their development plans for the next phase of the year, run through commission targets, set goals, organise a marketing engagement plan for the quarter ahead and offer insights and advice on growing their commission cheque.

On review of the trial during June and the feedback we received, we have decided that the dealer drop in clinics will remain and will run fortnightly throughout the calendar year.

Email Wesley@nsn.co.za if you would like to know more!

“Telecoms Sales veteran Wesley Swart has set fire to his initial revenue targets at NSN since joining on 1st September as Channel Director. Having firmly stuck the landing and revved the channel up Wesley said, “I’m delighted to have such an awesome team firing on all cylinders, and of course such a high-quality array of channel partners has made this new role a rewarding challenge”,

Since bringing a wealth of experience in new business creation to NSN, Wesley’s Team has closed an outstanding R11.8m of contracted revenues in the space of just 7 months. “My focus is on creating success as a team, doing whatever it takes to bag our goals together. And our Team is much bigger than just our NSN colleagues, we extend this sense of camaraderie to our Channel Partners who are vital to our success. The simple science behind our recent explosion of growth is in building up trust and showing what we can deliver. It’s a clear path from there to winning the business.”

“Having just completed the first quarter of our ground-breaking new Partner Success program I am delighted to say that we’ve seen some awesome growth across our Channel, with 3 brand new ‘Gold Partners’ and over 20 Silver Partners”, said Nick Shraga NSN’s MD.

NSN SA Gold Partners

Austvest

New Star Networks has enabled AustVest to diversify into new market segments, through NSNs innovative partner programme. The professional NSN staff, online system, marketing information, allow AustVest to market an innovative and professional product, ensuring growth for both AustVest and NSN, building a lasting partner relationship.

Bluenet Telecoms

We could not be happier with the level of support and professionalism received on a daily basis from the NSN team. We have a strategic alliance with NSN building our Business to Business Telecoms channel which is growing on a daily basis. The staff across the board are friendly, knowledgeable and keen to help, the product range is vast and price competitive.

Simple IT

Knowing that there is an experienced team of IT experts that I can lean on, gives me more time to grow the customer base.  Also using their in-house support ticketing system keeps everything transparent and keeps me in the loop of what is happening with the customer requests. Simple IT has an amazing Business Development Manager who assists with all inquiries. and over time has built a great business relationship.

Danielle Weldon

Welcoming on board Danielle Weldon as our new Channel Ambassador, tasked with taking our Channel offering out to the market she had this to say: “Having spent over 7 years at The Wanderers Club as The Sales and Marketing Manager, I was able to hone my abilities in relationship and sales management so as to ensure that the service I provided my clients went ‘over the boundary line’. I am constantly increasing my knowledge so that I ‘don’t go out for a duck’ in any industry. Having most recently completed Diplomas in Strategic Business Management and HR, I use this knowledge to boost my performance in all I set out to do. Let me be the ‘Batsman’ on your team and together we will score a ‘century’.”

Contact us today to learn more about how our Partner Success Program can support the growth in your business.

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