With the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic, NetCraftsmen is working with many of our Clients to help them enable their workforce to work remotely as part of their social distancing efforts.
NetCraftsmen has been advising our clients on their technology needs for almost 20 years, and has spent that time designing robust, scalable, and secure IT infrastructures that help our Clients serve their Customers.
As more of the workforce prepares to work remotely, there are a few areas that need to be considered to make telework a good experience:
- Increased bandwidth – Your organization may have ample Virtual Private Network (VPN) infrastructure but are scrambling to deploy more bandwidth in (and out). True collaboration with remote employees involves moving much more data. Having multiple providers of data circuits can help ensure connectivity when a single provider becomes overwhelmed.
- Adequate authentication infrastructure – Some organizations are considering ‘relaxing’ security requirements temporarily so that security does not become a bottleneck, but that is obviously not recommended for the mid to long term. Rapidly implementing increased user authentication has become easier with major vendors making licenses available for free during the pandemic (https://tinyurl.com/rwpn2hw).
- Remote phone capabilities – There may be concerns about your infrastructure’s ability to handle the majority of the employees simultaneously forwarding calls to cell/home numbers. Additional call management capabilities and technologies like mobile and remote access from Cisco can help (https://tinyurl.com/rgoowmd).
At NetCraftsmen, we have always utilized technology to enable our workforce to work from anywhere – securely. Not just to connect, but also to collaborate. We leverage video as part of our collaboration on a daily basis – in fact, video on is a requirement for NetCraftsmen meetings.
Over the years, we have learned a few things about collaboration and the use of technology that may make employees’ experience better:
- Have a standing meeting scheduled at all levels of the organization in smaller groups. Regular communications allow people to feel more connected to each other.
- Organize working sessions where employees can join a video meeting and work “together” – not necessarily talking to each other about a joint topic, but being able to see each other, and chat. Again, it promotes a sense of connectedness.
- It is important to be all-in on video. From the Chief Executive to the entry level. Have every remote meeting follow the same rules and require that everyone have video on during your meetings.
We believe in designing, building and managing an IT Infrastructure that enables business to be conducted the way it needs to be. That is what we have done for ourselves, and that is what we do for our clients, every day.
NetCraftsmen Consultants are available to discuss secure, remote connectivity solutions to help you protect your employees, and as a result, your business. Let us know how we can help by contacting us here.
Be safe.
Paul
#TheNetCraftsmenWay