As COVID-19 related restrictions are being eased around the country, people are focusing on getting out of the house. They want to get out for non-work gatherings and activities. “When can I get a haircut?” “Can I go to the beach this weekend?”
Ironically, surveys are showing that now more than ever people want to stay home to work; and every day, more companies are announcing plans to move to an entirely remote workforce or majority remote workforce.
There’s just no turning back and there are ways to manage these business changes.
Accept New Employee Expectations
No matter what type of business you are running, flexibility around working from home is already a standard expectation for employees. Research firm, Valoir, found that more than 40 percent of workers would prefer to work remotely full time in the future because of the abrupt move to working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Employees also realize they can’t compensate for lost productivity by working longer hours without significant cost to their mental health.
Stabilize Your Remote Workforce by Thinking Long-Term
Through this pandemic, we helped our clients meet their urgent needs to keep their systems up and secure and support their employees to work from home (WFH).
Just like states are moving into phases of reopening, we are moving forward with our clients to ensure that they have the right solutions in place to support the work environments and technology that make sense for their businesses.
To support the increased security and technology needs of this long-term remote workforce, you have to focus on the underlying infrastructure.
Ask Yourself These Questions:
- Did you scramble and make quick tech decisions to enable remote work?
- Do you need to improve security, equipment, collaborative capabilities?
- Will you need to backtrack to see what changes will cost you time and money?
- Are you really prepared for the long-term remote needs across your company to meet customer needs?
- Can you maintain employee connections so that your company culture is not sacrificed?
Reassess With an IT Audit
If you quickly set up your remote team, iTelecom can help you reassess to make sure you have everything you need to avoid crisis IT incidents.
We’ve learned that working from home productively requires more than just a functioning laptop. Networks need enough capacity and secure endpoints for workers to access their files and applications from anywhere, and employees need access to cloud applications to take full advantage of the collaboration tools available to them. We are here to build or expand your WFH strategy so that you and employees can accomplish more in more locations without jeopardizing your security or productivity.
