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Everything You Need To Manage And Support Your Remote Staff During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Just because your staff is stuck at home, that doesn’t mean your business has to be put on hold. With the right IT and best practices in place, you can keep your staff working and productive.
The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the global community in a range of ways, from the economic toll to the fundamental changes to how businesses are operating in new remote workspaces.
How has your experience in the remote setting been so far? Wouldn’t you like to eliminate some of the daily challenges you’ve been dealing with?
Check out our latest video to learn more:
Double Check Your Remote Work Capabilities
- Can You Hold Video Meetings? You’ll want to invest in a way for your staff to meet, both together, and with clients. While an audio-only conference call can suffice, many prefer to use video meeting software like Microsoft Teams. This allows for a more personal and connected experience in meetings.
- Are You Using Cloud-Based Phones? If you and your team are used to communicating over the phone at the office, you’ll likely want to maintain that standard as you switch to a work-from-home model. You should look into cloud-hosted phone systems, which can maintain your business numbers and lines, and route incoming and outgoing calls through the cloud to your staff’s devices at home.
- Can Your Staff Connect? This really only becomes an issue if your staff members are located in rural or remote areas that still lack a strong Internet option. If that’s the case, then you’re urged to consider investing in mobile hotspots, or reimburse staff for the increased cost of relying on their personal cellular data connection.
- Does Your Team Have The Right Hardware? Your employees require the right technology in their homes in order to continue working like they normally would in the office. In this day and age, you could assume that your employees all have laptops or desktops at home, but that may not be the case. You’d be surprised how many people rely on a smartphone or tablet for all their personal computing needs.
- Do You Have The Necessary Storage Space? Are you sure you have enough cloud storage and email storage space for your entire staff? They won’t be able to save files locally to their work computers anymore, which means your storage needs will go up.
- Have You Considered Access Rights? Have you determined where there are any files that should not be accessed by staff remotely? If you operate in a regulated industry like healthcare or finance, you may want to section off certain sensitive data.
- What About Continuity Of Roles? While most jobs can be done from home, you should take a moment to consider what jobs specifically can be managed while outside of the office.
- Do You Have The Right Licensing? Have you invested in the necessary number of licenses for all of your staff members to work remotely? Some cloud platforms and applications will have a limit, which may not have mattered in the office, but could slow your business down in a fully-remote model.
Don’t panic if you’re not sure how to address these concerns – you’re not on your own. The Pure IT team is available to assist businesses like yours in planning and launching and optimizing remote work capabilities.
Like this article? Check out the following blogs to learn more:
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How Calgary Businesses Can Use IT Protect Employees & Avoid A COVID-19 Shutdown
