Sending your workers home because of COVID-19? Companies (large and small) across California and other states are taking precautions such as “work from home if coughing” or even “no one come in until further notice.”
Top tips to ensure productivity and security while your team is working out-of-office:
1. Share out contact guides
- Do your people know how to get a hold of IT, HR, and other departments when they can’t walk across the office to speak with them?
- Consider putting key phone numbers, emails, and POCs into a quick reference guide for your team in case they experience any issues from home.
2. Collaboration is key
- Consider scheduling extra team check-ins: Even a daily 15-minute standup on video conference can help keep teams moving in sync. Have you ever had a virtual coffee break?
- Share out successes: Take extra time to acknowledge the accomplishments of your team to make sure everyone stays motivated.
- Set-up your file-sharing tools with the correct architecture and administrative access to avoid mishaps in people seeing things they shouldn’t be.
- Consider having multiple ways of collaborating. Video conferencing software is great for meetings, but what do you do when you need to quickly chat with a teammate or group? Tools like Slack are easy to use and help to communicate effectively.
- Have you heard of the hot new collaboration tools on the market? Try checking out Tandem and Miro to improve communication across teams.
3. Know where your devices are, and what’s on them
- Keep an inventory of your company-owned devices so that you know where your data is being stored.
- Ensure your employees are on the latest (and most compliant) version of software to avoid issues collaborating.
- Make sure you are able to remotely push software updates when they take place, rather than relying on individual employees to do it themselves!
4. Be proactive with IT security
- Consider mandating a VPN solution. Several affordable and flexible options are available on the market.
- Being able to remotely wipe or lock a device is critical. Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions help ensure that you can wipe lost or stolen devices.
- Remotely enable Filevault on all company-owned devices so that in the worst-case scenario, the data is encrypted!
- Consider mandating a password update for all critical systems.
