The Power & Pitfalls of Anywhere Work: Tips for Successful Transition to Remote Work in the Long Term

Already, we’re seeing business commit to work from home in the long term, creating new opportunity and challenges for organizational productivity, security and access.

Even for large corporations, navigating this transition is presenting their seasoned IT staff with a host of new requirements to address timely.  For a smaller business where there may be no IT resources in-house, the transition to remote work long term can be daunting. 

Luckily, our team has assembled some best practices and ideas to jump start the transition process with as little headaches as possible.

Is it time to consider work from home in the long term?

Of course not every business can leverage work from home.  For those that can, business owners should consider this transition part of their overall business continuity strategy and plan to enable remote work in the long term.  According to a late March 2020 study from Gartner, 74% of corporate CFOs expect at least 5% of their employees to remain remote in the long term.  For smaller businesses, the goal is to ensure you have the access and solutions needed to keep employees working regardless of their location: home, while on the road or in other environments, so that you can keep delivering successful outcomes in any situation.

What do you need to enable long term remote working?

There are a host of systems and services you can choose from to enable your workforce remotely and monitor their performance.  We’ve selected a few that are considered table stakes.

1. High Capacity, Scalable Internet at Home AND to Office Systems

It may seem obvious that your employees need fast, secure broadband access at home or wherever they are working.  However, have you considered the need to upgrade your office connectivity too?  As you install solutions like VPN (Virtual Private Networks) to keep remote connections secure, put your business applications in the cloud or host host big data and file sharing, you may find that your office internet traffic is being taxed too.  Now may be the time to upgrade all your networks and choose the most robust, business-grade internet options available.

2. Virtual Phone Systems and Strategies

There are a host of interesting solutions for smaller businesses to use to give customers a professional phone system experience, while your staff are in a variety of locations.  These fall into a category called, Voice over IP, with the business-class versions also offering Virtual PBX (or Virtual Phone System) options.  This means you can create a main office number with a virtual agent, as well as business-class features, like 4- or 5-digit dialing, call transfer, voicemail and call forwarding to any number.  Having this kind of solution is critical to ensure clients can reach your staff in ways other than email without them having to use their home or mobile phone numbers.  Not only does it protect your employees’ personal data, it also ensures that if employees leave, clients are calling you, not former staff.

3. Network and Transactional Security

An essential component of your remote access strategy must be Virtual Private Networks, called VPNs.  There are a multitude of solutions for businesses of all sizes.  Before you invest, speak with an experienced solution provider to choose the right option for your business. Your business is like no other so off the shelf solutions may not give you the customized fit needed. 

Fiber-optic data and voice solutions are highly scalable to meet need and capacity as business situations change including fueling advanced applications like the above.   

Remote work, if properly enabled, can not only make your business more robust and ensure continuous operations in any situation, it can also lead to happier, more productive workers as they benefit from greater flexibility.

We’re here to help small business do big things.  Contact our Mediacom Business Team for help.

Resources:

The Ultimate Work from Home Guide from Forbes.com

The Ultimate Small Business Guide To Setting Up Remote Network Access For Your Staff