Switching To A Remote Work Model During The Coronavirus Pandemic

With the right tools in place, it doesn’t matter if your staff is stuck at home for the next few days or the next few weeks – they can be just as productive as they are in the office. Do you know how to launch a remote work model for your business?

If coronavirus continues to spread at the rate it has been in the last few weeks, at some point soon you will have to tell your staff to work from home.

Do you know how to keep them productive when they can’t come into the office?

The Struggle Between Social Distancing And Business Continuity

Without the right IT solutions in place, many businesses are having to choose their employees’ health over their business’.

In order to limit the spread of coronavirus, our nation has to work together, practicing something called “social distancing”. Canceling large gatherings, and limiting your staff’s exposure at the office will be more and more important as time goes on.

While this practice may be effective for slowing the spread of coronavirus, it will undoubtedly be detrimental to businesses across the country. A majority of these organizations are not configured to support staff members as they work from home. With little to no time to get prepared, many businesses are scrambling to set up the right technologies and keep their staff working.

Have you figured out your coronavirus continuity plan?

Switching To A Remote Work Model In 5 Steps

1. Confirm Employees’ Technical Capabilities: You need to poll your staff and find out who has a reliable Internet connection at home. If your staff lives in remote areas with poor signal strength, you may have to consider investing in cellular-data, or have a plan in place to deal with delays on their end.So long as they have a strong Internet connection, the rest of the work is on the IT services provider to deliver a responsive and user-friendly cloud platform with which the worker can access their business data.

   The right course of action is to have a conversation with each employee who will be working from home and have them send information regarding their computers, smartphones, and internet connection over to you.

   If you need to upgrade any devices or services (such as mobile data plans or internet packages), start doing so as soon as possible. For internet connections, you may also choose to provide corporate-owned smartphones with data packages that can be tethered to computers.

2. Make Sure You Have IT Support: IT will be all the more important at this time, and as such, you’ll want to make sure you have the right support services in place. A help desk support team should be available to your employees in the event of technology issues, questions or concerns. Typically, most of their work will be done remotely – troubleshooting issues and answering questions.
3. Develop a Remote Business Plan: Most jobs can be done from home. However, take a moment to consider what jobs specifically can be managed while outside of the office and document them.
   You’ll also want to keep in touch with your staff following a more rigid process than you would in the office when everyone is in the same place and readily available. Set a schedule for regular meetings to touch base and get updates.
4. Support Your Staff: Your staff members need to be able to do their work, and easily. If they’re fighting against unintuitive software, a bad connection, or anything else tech-related, their standard workday won’t be all that productive. It won’t be long before your business’ productivity grinds to a halt.
5. Don’t Forget About Phones: Cloud-based phone systems and collaboration tools, such as Microsoft Office 365, will play a crucial role in your business – allowing your team to work from home while still taking part in conference calls, video calls, file sharing and more.

Is Your Business Ready To Work From Home?

It’s understandable if you’re overwhelmed by the idea of launching remote work capabilities right now. You’re short on time and staff, and you may not have the skills or knowledge to begin with, and that’s OK.

TNN can help – our expert team is available to help you get your staff ready to work from home.