While COVID-19 continues to spread, more companies are mandating that employees work from home for extra precaution. Here are some tips and tricks from Entech to navigating this pandemic until it passes.
Affording staff the freedom to be able to work from the safety of their own homes, while the world is in panic mode is a relief for many. With the influx of powerful cloud-computing apps for business, you can still improve productivity and cut costs on in-house tech services with remote workers and support.
During this time, follow these five steps so that your business can be secure, efficient and stay on top of your deadlines.
1. Invest in reliable tools
The success of a remote team relies heavily on the tools they use. If your employees have trouble hearing you on a conference call, can’t download or collaborate on a file, and run out of storage space, you’re in trouble. Investing in reliable tools – Office 365, for example – is absolutely imperative, and not just for productivity.
Collaboration in a remote team is just as important as in any local workforce, especially for building a sense of community, culture, and belonging. Find a flexible platform with easy integration of the kind of communication, scheduling and productivity applications you need most and build on that. From document sharing to CRM and video conferencing, make sure everyone has secure, flexible access to the right technology to get the job done.
If you’re not confident you have the right tech to transition to a remote workforce, it could be worth investing in a professional technology assessment.
2. Keep your team engaged
An engaged team is a productive team, so keep everyone connected with a robust set of communication options. Since we don’t know how long until this crisis is averted, use daily checkpoints to help keep employees on track.
Some remote employees find it useful to share what they’ll be working on that day with the rest of the team on a group message. Some will need to stay connected with a VoIP-based calling system that offers digital voicemail, multichannel messaging and call handoff to their mobile. Others may want to conduct face-to-face meetings with video chat.
Find the options and schedule that works best for your team and agree on some guidelines to keep everyone in the loop and on target. It is important for your business to stay operational through this time.
3. Safeguard important data
Every year, millions of US records are exposed by online data breaches. Data security is a top concern for all businesses. And if you’re working with a remote team, the majority, if not all, of your important data will be stored online.
Ensure your staff is updated on the latest online security best practices. Things such as developing strong and unique passwords (a password manager is a great tool to keep track of these) and multi-factor authentication are simple ways to keep your business, staff, and client data protected.
Make sure your BYOD policy is thorough enough to guide employees on how to handle, access, and secure their devices used for company activity, and update company-owned devices regularly to ensure maximum protection. Set backup schedules and network permissions to ensure total protection against unauthorized activity.
4. Trust your team
Will my staff actually do their work when they are working from home? Can we maintain the same work quality and turnaround standards? These are common concerns that are probably floating around in business managers heads, however, working remote right now is the only option.
To ease these worries and help business operations be more successful, first, trust your team. If they work responsibly in the office, chances are they will work responsibly at home. What’s more, many employees may have already had experience working in a remote team so they know how to get the most out of their day.
To add accountability and align expectations across the team, establish communication and work-from-home guidelines. For example, request client responses within 1 business day, require internal email responses the same business day and limit scheduled calls to business hours to ensure your staff isn’t working around the clock.
5. Set clear expectations
Everyone has their own idea of what doing something “fast” or to a “high standard” means. It’s a good idea to set clear expectations of what you expect to be done.
One way to do this is to set goals, schedules, and deadlines to avoid misunderstandings. Use project management and calendar apps to share project information, keep activity flowing and achieve important milestones on time and on target.
Final thoughts
Since this has become the new standard for the time being, make the best of it. Approaching remote work the right way will give your business an advantage. The above tips will give you a solid foundation for the flexible, productive, agile remote workforce you need during this pandemic. If you have any questions or want to discuss some concerns you might have about your workforce working remotely, feel free to reach out. We’re always willing to talk.
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