How to make remote working successful for your business
Follow these simple tips to prepare your team and processes for a new remote environment
As working remotely becomes the new normal for more people (at least for now), many businesses may be feeling underprepared.
If you feel like there’s been little time to plan your move to remote working, you’re not alone.
Like many other business leaders around the world, you’re probably scrambling to gather the equipment, information and access your team needs to work remotely.
To help you get off on the right foot, here are some simple tips you can follow to make remote working successful for your business.
Keep connected
A lot of our clients have been asking us the best way to stay connected. We recommend setting up remote connections like LogMeIn for your team’s work computers, and configuring your phone system to either forward to your cell phone or—if your VoIP system allows it—take your desk phones home.
Ask your team members to check they have adequate internet service and the right computer equipment to use for the remote connection. The technology requirements are usually not very demanding: regular home broadband service and a laptop should work just fine.
Open communication
Your team is working remotely—but they shouldn’t feel remote from each other.
With the right communication strategy, you’ll boost morale and go a long way to foster the same sense of collaboration you have when everyone’s together in the office. Team communication options to consider include daily email check-ins, instant messaging services like Slack, and video calls.
Other tools like Microsoft Teams allow teams to keep in touch through chat, and include other useful features like screen sharing and video meetings. Team leaders can tailor the Teams app within Office 365 to fit their specific needs.
Set expectations
Your team is adjusting to a very different workday, and this can have an effect on productivity. Project management tools like Asana can help to keep your work on track by allowing you to assign tasks to team members, set deadlines, and monitor progress.
Work around physical restrictions
To make remote working successful, some physical processes may need to be adjusted. See if these tasks can be done virtually, or if the entire process can be adapted to fit your new remote environment. If there’s no workaround, consider keeping a few key personnel at the office during different hours to complete these manual tasks.
Other IT considerations
Before you begin to work remotely, it’s a good time to take stock of how your company is currently set up.
To help you, we’ve created a handy checklist of some of the more in-depth technical aspects to consider. Use it to get an idea of how easy it will be for your office to work remotely—and where any shortcomings may lie.
VoIP Phones
- Does your phone system allow you to use mobile apps on your cell phone to make and receive work calls?
- Do you have the ability to take your desk phone home with you?
- Can you use eFax solutions to make faxes remotely instead of a physical copier/scanner/fax unit that will be stuck in your office location?
Servers
- Does your business rely on a server to be running in your office for access to software and files?
- If so, are there hosted web applications that can replace those server applications?
- Can you use hosted solutions like Dropbox for access to your files instead of a local server?
- If the server is a necessity can you host it in the cloud using a solution like Amazon AWS cloud server hosting?
Security
- If you have a work laptop that is used for your business, are you covered in case of theft using remote wipe software and hard drive encryption?
- If you’re using remote software such as LogMeIn to work remotely, are you using complex passwords and 2 Factor Authentication to log into those services?
By following these simple tips, you’ll get your team and your processes ready for the new work environment, and be much better prepared for remote working success.
Need help answering the questions above and managing your move to remote working?