Telecommuting: How to Enable Your Employees to Work From Home During Coronavirus – and Why it Matters.
It’s safe to say Coronavirus is having a serious impact on our country, but what kind of impact will it have on your business? As closures within various industries continue to happen around the country, crisis-sustainable business operations become more important than ever.
Companies vulnerable to major losses if COVID-19 shows up in their office have to think about how they will continue to operate if multiple employees have to stay home from work at once.
Is your company ready for the worst case scenario?
It’s one thing to have an employee or two out sick, but that’s not the situation we face today. If Corona ends up in your workplace you could face an office-wide shut down. This will force your employees home, and if they are not able to work from home or telecommute, your company, your customers and your team will suffer financially, not to mention the emotional and mental stress that all parties will endure.
Even if you do not experience a shut down, employees showing signs of any illness are encouraged to stay home, which could still mean that multiple employees are out of the office at once. If that happens, are they prepared to telecommute, or do your current business operations require that employees be in the office to work?
Telecommuting is an answer to COVID-19 and future crisis situations.
Some businesses, such as tech companies, CPA firms, and law firms have decided to increase remote work capability – regardless of illness – in a proactive attempt to mitigate productivity loss. This way the office will receive less traffic, which means less risk of a COVID-19 outbreak among their team – all without losing a minute of performance.
Telecommuting, telework or Office Virtualization is a smart practice – and one that is only serving to accelerate the already rapidly growing remote work from home trend in America. Also see our recent article, What is Office Virtualization.
But what if you aren’t set up for telecommuting?
If your applications and files are tied to in-office desktop computers, your employees must be in-office in order to work. If your company doesn’t provide laptops to your employees with the same capabilities as their desktop computers, remote work just isn’t possible.
Or is it?
Telecommuting remote work capability means more flexibility, possibility, and freedom.
When you detach your apps from hardware and host them virtually, you create the freedom needed for your employees to access important files and functionalities from home. At that point, whether you have provided them with a company laptop or not, they can access their applications and files from any device with the same (or better) security than if they were only able to utilize them in-house.
With a telecommuting capability in place, pandemics like COVID-19, natural disasters, and other “act of God” occurrences will never again pose as big of a threat to your workflow as they do when in-house is your only option.
You may think this would be an expensive move to make, but in fact it stands to save you money over time. During a pandemic like Coronavirus, remote work capabilities could be the difference between a business that thrives and a business that must struggle to survive.
Whether or not you implement regular remote practices, the option to work in this way can become an essential part of your disaster recovery plan. However, in the future, remote work will become a new standard. Perhaps now is the time to make it your new standard.
If you want to prepare your office to support telecommuting it can happen faster than you think. Contact Infinitely Virtual. We specialize in helping small firms just like yours and we look forward to serving you.
Scott McDonald
Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Infinitely Virtual
e: scott@infinitelyvirtual.com
www.infinitelyvirtual.com
