Working from home tech tips

Need to give your staff flexible work arrangements to work remotely from their home office? There’s lots to consider and many options available. Here are the top tips on the technology available to enable employees to work remotely:

1. If your company already employs cloud-based hosting for its network infrastructure and email, you’re halfway there. Having a cloud infrastructure rather than an in-house network makes everything accessible from any location. Other advantages to the employer include the smaller costs of a monthly subscription compared to having to maintain dedicated equipment and support staff. Find out more ...
   
   
2. Security - pay particular attention to network security when employees are working from home. Logging in remotely can leave companies open to security breaches. Fortigate firewalls are an example of one way to achieve top security at a good price point.
   
   Also apply two-factor authentication (2FA) to business-critical accounts like email, accounting packages and bank accounts. Scammers rely on breaks in communication within organisations to launch phishing scams or identity fraud. Employees working from separate locations can cause just enough disruption to an organisation’s communication to make life easy for cybercriminals.
   
   Turning on two-factor authentication is an easy yet big step towards protecting against these sorts of attacks. Find out how ...
   
   
3. Did you know there are a number of great current offers from global companies to support remote workers:
   
   - if you use Microsoft Office 365 you have access to Sharepoint, Microsoft’s document management and storage system, plus 25 terabytes of data.
   
   - Google is offering free access to its advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally until July 1, 2020.
   
   More information:
   Google and Microsoft are giving away enterprise conferencing tools due to coronavirus
   
   Helping businesses and schools stay connected in response to Coronavirus
   
   
4. Keeping in contact with co-workers is critical for those who work from home - for both sanity and keeping on top of work. So what video conferencing options are out there?
   
   - Zoom → an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems.
   
   - Webex → all the team collaboration tools you need to keep work moving forward and it connects with the other tools you use to simplify life - Chat, Meet, Whiteboard, Schedule, and Files.
   
   - Teams → work remotely without feeling remote - chat, meet, call, and collaborate all in one place, no matter where you are.
   
   - Hangouts → use Hangouts to keep in touch. Message colleagues, start free video or voice calls and hop on a conversation with one person or a group of up to 100 people as part of a Google tenancy (the standard is 15 users but this has been increased to 100 for the next 6 months)
   
   
5. Who will (wo)man the phones if staff are working from home? Many modern internet phone systems provide an easy solution in this scenario. For example, with the Yealink phone you can simply take your phone home with you to receive work calls as normal. Just plug the phone cable into an available LAN port on your router and work calls will come directly to your home office.
   
   Your phone will need a power pack to operate in your home office. In the office environment the phone is powered via the network, which is not possible on a home router. Contact us for power pack pricing and availability.
   
   
6. If you’ve moved to working from home, why not give your clients the option to access your services remotely too? Talk to us about how your website can be expanded to enable online ordering and payments for home delivery of your product. Add a shopping cart plugin and sign up for a payment gateway like Stripe and you could be ready to do business online fast. Contact me to discuss these options.