It’s becoming a greater necessity for businesses to maintain a remote workforce. But what does that mean? A remote workforce is great in a few ways. You no longer need to keep a large brick-and-mortar presence. You don’t have to keep your employees on the same schedule, and you can get better employees from farther away. Still, there are some requirements.
Update Your Tech
When you have a remote workforce, they need to be able to connect from anywhere. And that means that they have to have their own connectivity at home, and they need the bandwidth at the office. You may need to upgrade your solutions, so they can safely reach their data.
Your employees should be told what Internet speeds they need and the minimum configurations of their at home systems. You may want to provide laptops and tablets for better safety and security, because otherwise you can’t control the systems they use, or whether they install software that could be dangerous. And educate employees on the use of WiFi, as well as securing it.
In terms of software, the most important is software that lets people connect. That includes software such as Slack or MS Teams, which consolidates communication in a single hub.
Get the Right Speeds
Many offices today are only concerned with download speeds. For a long time, most Internet speeds have been asynchronous; they download fast but upload slow, because most people are just downloading rather than uploading.
Well, if you have people connecting to your office from home, you need fast upload speeds as well as download speeds. You need a symmetrical connection. Getting synchronous Internet speeds will speed up employee productivity.
Create the Right Processes
When employees work from home, processes are different, too. You need to develop the right processes if you’re going to have employees remain productive, such as weekly check-ins, deadline-based (rather than hour-based) work, and the ability for employees to connect with each other consistently (such as checking emails periodically).
Work with employees and ask them what is and isn’t working. They’ll be able to tell you whether they feel connected to the office, or whether they’re starting to feel adrift.
Having employees work from home means you need to develop a positive technological and social framework. Employees need to be able to relate to each other and work together, and they also need to have the technological support.
PS LIGHTWAVE provides high-speed, fiber Internet for public and private commercial entities in the Greater Houston and surrounding areas.
Through our high-quality infrastructure, innovative technology and expert, locally based support, we deliver not only the best in connectivity and reliability but in scalability and redundancy. We invite you to learn more about our services, our history and our dedicated team.
