COVID-19 has changed working patterns with a significant number of people working remotely. Officials in public health recommend social distancing as one of the ways to reduce COVID-19 infections. Social distancing involves avoidance of mass gatherings and maintaining the two-meter distance from the next person. Many businesses are unable to meet this requirement because of the number of employees, and the buildings they do businesses in may be small hence have asked their employees to work from home. This has been a challenge for some employees and employers, especially those doing it for the first time.
This article will look at ways to tailor the remote needs of your employees and business with the corona pandemic in mind.
Table of Contents
1. Provide Employees with Essential Work Equipment
Employees working remotely should have managed workplace services that enable them to have access to necessary work resources. This may include computers and files. If an employee needs to take equipment home, this should be made possible if work has to be done. New procedures should be introduced when taking equipment home, such as serial number recording against the employee’s name and signature. With the required resources there will be no excuses of low production unless otherwise.
2. Implement Remote Security Processes
It becomes a security risk to company data when everyone is accessing company servers remotely. Therefore, there is a need to put in place privacy, security, and data protection measures to protect confidential and sensitive company information as well ensure excellent managed IT services. Traditional systems that prevent intrusion and firewalls may not be enough in remote working.
The first solution to protect your data is by using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) when accessing the internet. VPNs hide the location of the user, making it difficult for cybercriminals to locate your devices. But, you can go a step further and install an endpoint-based data loss prevention (eDLP) solution. This monitor and protects employees’ remote locations apart from network nodes and servers. The security measure prevents data leaks by eradicating the risk at the user’s workstation, where most cyber threats happen.
3. Practice Open Communication
Maintain open communication channels with your employees. Communication should not be limited to email or phone calls. Set aside a time during the week where you can all have a meeting using videoconferencing channels such as Zoom and Skype. By doing this, your employees will feel they still part of a team as they sometimes feel lonely while working alone at home. It will also enable them to interact with others and implement new ideas from other employees. Sufficiently managed workplace services that ease communication enable efficient follow-up of work given.
4. Use Tools that Promote Team Collaboration
Install tools that enable collaboration among employees. Such tools make document sharing easy and also allow efficient assignment of team responsibilities. When doing this, ensure you have well managed IT services to supervise access control policies to prevent sensitive documents from getting to unauthorized people.
