COVID-19. What every business needs to know: Working Remotely

What will the effect of the Coronavirus be on your business?

What steps could you take to minimise the risk?  

This is first of our business bulletins aimed at sharing information on best practice and options during the Coronavirus outbreak. The questions we are most commonly fielding right now are:

1. How can I keep my business running during the coronavirus crisis by working remotely?
2. Remote working solutions that fit the size of my business?

Remote Working Solutions

The increase in fibre networks, complemented by a boom in video calling technology, has empowered many businesses to consider working from home options for staff; a process that has now been accelerated by the Coronavirus. 

Personal hardware is often better than office equipment as game and leisure applications have led to better devices with more memory and speed, with Microsoft and Google embedded software becoming the norm. Consumers buy to please, unlike IT departments who have to run kit over a number of years. 

The working from home model requires that normal business rules apply, for example: 

• Staff should expect to be called
• Lunch is not 3 hours long
• Customers need to be properly serviced
• Records need to be updated

However, operations need to run as smoothly as they do in the office.

Businesses need to recognize that colleagues may want to log in at irregular hours or work in batch periods. The key to maintaining productivity and a healthy work life balance is to ensure colleagues are not stressed out about technical issues, particularly around accessing sensitive customer data or sharing information with co-workers. 

Our Recommendations 

Depending on the size of your company, various options come into play:

More than 200 employees?

Smarter Business recommends: 

Visionist, a Crown Procurement supplier with an established history of working with Government Ministries and strategic information assets, has created a solution for businesses that enables employees to access internet applications from their personal devices, through a secure, cloud-based, zero trust build. 

Benefits include:  

• Rapid Business Continuity Improvements 
• Scalable Cloud Architecture 
• Safe and Secure 
• Simplicity for Users

An overview can be accessed here.

Given the size, scale and complexity of larger companies, the team can provide comprehensive advice on individual circumstances, however, the solution has been designed as an off-the-shelf package and can be deployed at speed.

For smaller companies?

Smarter Business recommends:

Horizon is a complete communications service for your business. It provides an extensive range of fixed and mobile telephony capabilities and is controlled via an easy-to-use web portal, allowing you to manage your environment whilst enabling your employees to maximise their productivity when working from home.  

This means no setup costs and fully flexible/scalable billing options. Smarter Business can enable your employees to work remotely, without jeopardising your bottom line. Stay connected, anytime, anywhere

To understand more about Horizon click here and stay connected.

We’re in this together

However your business adapts to COVID-19, Smarter Business will continue to do everything in our power to offer our clients the very best service across the board. Stay safe, stay sensible and do what you can to help the government, and indeed the world, get through this difficult time.