How to set up your business for remote working
Is your organisation set up to enable your staff to work from home in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak? Think Concepts can help you overcome this challenge.
As COVID-19 becomes more widespread, more NZ employers are looking to encourage some or all employees to work from home in an effort to minimise the spread.
With strict self-isolation requirements being put into place by the New Zealand government, it’s more important than ever for businesses to be prepared with a remote work plan for their employees that is both successful and productive.
However, not every business is agile and ready for remote working — at least on this scale. And since remote working is dependent on technology for communication, if the infrastructure and IT assistance isn’t in place to support it, or there’s some kind of error in the system, this will cause an immediate drop in productivity (and increase in frustration!).
Here we break down what you need to set up your business for seamless remote working, whether temporary or not — and explain how Think Concepts can help you manage the shift to remote working without sacrificing professionalism and performance.
What IT setup best supports a remote working environment?
You may already have some methods in place that enable flexible working, such as mobile phones, mobile data, and company laptops - and that’s a good start. But what else could you be doing to help your team function effectively, securely, and be productive outside of the office?
#1: Cyber Security – If your team are going to be working on their own personal laptop, desktop or workstation – what we call BYOD (bring your own device) then security is of prime importance. Given the challenges in securing work-from-home environments, it’s hardly a surprise that as many organisations shift their businesses online, cybercriminals are stepping up their tactics to take advantage of those companies who may have insufficient security setups. A variety of solutions enable safer BYOD practice, including virtual environments, stronger encryption or authentication programs.
Contact us to create a specialised security strategy that will protect your organisation from cyber-attacks as you make the shift to remote working.
#2: Remote IT Support – In-house IT staff look after hardware, antivirus, software and general break-fix issues that arise through anyone's workday. This type of support is essential no matter where your team is based. In a newly flexible, remote working situation, you may not have the same access to your usual in-house staff (if you have them) — so having an IT support contract with a vendor that offers a remote on-call type service might be just what you're looking for, especially when utilising new technology! Having outsourced IT support can save you money as it's typically cheaper than having full-time IT staff.
#3: Unified Communication Platform – Investing in a unified communication platform provides voice, instant messaging, conference facilities and video calling for your entire team – ensuring all office communication and collaboration can take place as normal (or close to it), no matter where people are working from. The latest mobile phones are great, but their calling functionality isn't (in most cases) suited for business environments. With unified communication platform, customers will be able to ring a main phone number, and everyone (or select groups) can pick up/transfer the call via their laptop or mobile phone. Online presence indicators also give your clients a better experience, as you can visualise the availability of your team members, making it easy to establish who is actually available.
Contact our IT consultants to see what unified communication platforms are right for your business.
#4: Cloud-Based Solutions – An entire world of cloud solutions and services can be utilised as long as employees have access to a strong internet connection. Moving business critical infrastructure and information to the cloud will ensure staff can access all key documentation and applications no matter where they are, and negate the risk of local hardware failure, lost data, or failing backups.
Is creating a successful remote work environment achievable?
It is absolutely achievable, not only can our customers be a testament to that, but this is how we operate at Think Concepts.
For us, we need to be fully equipped to look after our customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To do this we need to be able to access all documents and applications no matter where we are and be able to answer the phone no matter what time of day it is. Furthermore, our consultants are always out and about.
Having an IT setup that helps us achieve our business outcomes, and enables flexible and remote working, has been the key to our success.
How did we achieve this?
All our applications, company tools and data used to operate and service our clients are delivered via cloud services. This means that we have zero dependency on our physical offices. Further, all our staff are provided with laptops, so our team can easily roam and have a near identical experience regardless of their location.
Our telephone system also runs on a cloud-based platform and our team all have a softphone application on their company laptops and mobiles. Our call centre queues, and therefore helpdesk, will continue to function in the same manner regardless of team member location.
So should there be a situation in which a quarantine is sanctioned across NZ due to COVID-19 we are fully equipped to service clients remotely without any business disruptions.
Do you want our help creating a successful remote work setup?
If you would like to understand more about how we can support your organisation in implementing some of the above IT solutions into your business amidst the COVID-19 virus outbreak, we would love to talk to you.
We can help you overcome this immediate challenge to enable your team to work remotely, and/or create a plan to adapt your business systems for any long-term disruption – so that you can remain operational now, and in the future.