Company gains physical office in Southampton

NASH Maritime, a maritime consultancy in the offshore renewables sector, has expanded into a traditional brick and mortar office after a remote start.

The Ocean Village Innovation Centre in Southampton first provided NASH Maritime with a “virtual address”, and now is home to their physical premises too.

NASH Maritime has been involved in more than 30 offshore renewable projects since its founding by Dr Ed Rogers. The company has six employees and a network of industry associates providing shipping, navigation and marine risk expertise in maritime operations and infrastructure development projects.

“Demand comes from the global expanding offshore renewables sector, where we are working with funders, developers and planners on identifying and optimising sites in UK waters, taking these through the leasing and consent process and into construction and operation,” said Ed Rogers.

Jamie Holmes added: “As a young business with stacks of industry experience going back within the ports, oil and gas and offshore renewables sectors, we have a place of identity which aligns closely with our own, and we are proud to host our clients here.”

Stephen Deller, OVIC’s centre manager, said: “NASH Maritime initially had a virtual office here at OVIC and has expanded since last July, culminating with their recent doubling of office size and with flexibility to further increase its footprint in the years to come without the expense and inconvenience of relocation.”

Setting up a virtual office is very useful for employers, as they allow smaller businesses to have a presence in higher-status areas as well as reducing costs due to not needing building maintenance or insurance. They also make it very easy to expand and contract without worrying about rent leases.

This style of working is on the rise in popularity, as part of a move away from rigid 9 – 5 working hours and towards hours more suitable for the individual employees. The main reason that people ask to switch to a flexible working pattern is in order to make it possible or easier to balance their family commitments, particularly if they have children, elderly parents or other dependants.

Managing remote workers is always a concern to business who are considering switching to this working style, since it is not as easy to measure their productivity or punctuality as it would be in the same building.

Here at Time and Attendance South East, we can offer concerned companies a web-based application to help them manage their remote attendance. It is called the Self Service Module and it allows remote employees to clock themselves in and out at the start and end of the day, and to request holidays.

A record of their clock-ins and outs can be exported or printed if the company would like a copy in those formats. The supervisor has full access to all the employees’ data on the app and can run reports if they need to.

There is also a Self Service Module mobile app, and the main advantage of this over using a browser is that clock-ins via the phone are transferred with the GPS location. This confirms the phone’s location at the time of clocking-in, and a manager can view employee movements on a map.

If the employees go into an area of bad signal, the mobile app can cache the information onto the phone and transfer it as soon as connectivity is restored.

Both staff and managers can book visitor appointments remotely, meaning that unnecessary phone calls or car journeys are eliminated.