Many employees now work remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impacts. This shift is a long-term investment required to make remote work practicable. The coronavirus problem may compel workers to work from home for an unknown period. Still, one thing’s for sure: remote work will be increasingly widespread in the future.
As a result, businesses have realized that they must prepare for unexpected work-from-home regulations by prioritizing investments in the technology and infrastructure enabling remote work.
There’s also a need for excellent informational technology (IT) support staff, such as Virteva, a Crossfuze company, that’s accessible 24/7 and provides complete IT assistance to all of your employees.
However, suppose you’re worried about the work transition. In that case, you should know that there are several ways to provide IT support for your remote workforce. Keep reading to find out what those are.
What Is a Remote Workforce?
This refers to a group of employees who work from a location other than your main office or headquarters. They do their jobs from any sort of place they find comfortable or convenient, from their own homes to coworking spaces nearby. In some companies, all of their employees work remotely—this concept is known as ‘remote-first.’ It allows employees to work from wherever they are, yet they can still perform specific tasks from a centralized office if required or preferred.
Several advantages may come from working remotely, including higher productivity and satisfaction and healthier staff members overall. Nevertheless, if you don’t implement this setup properly, you might end up raising IT security risks, violating compliance standards, or unnecessarily burdening end users.
Technical Requirements for A Remote Workforce
It’s vital to have the proper technological infrastructure to provide remote employees with safe access to the services and information they need. Because of the rapid advancement of technology, most employees are already proficient in communicating with coworkers and local and international business contacts alike through email, chat, and SMS.
Cloud computing, team collaboration software, and videoconferencing platforms are among the tools widely used by companies today to keep their workers connected and enable them to carry out business operations both at the office and from a distance. However, a smooth transition requires adequate infrastructure, and many businesses have fallen short in this regard. In such cases, enterprises can expect to face a considerable amount of technical support difficulties in the future.
Therefore, they must move away from the random work-from-home strategy used during the height of COVID-19. Instead, they can adopt an organized approach to the remote working model with sufficient IT support.
Providing Strong IT Support to Remote Workforce
As a growing number of businesses manage a remote workforce, specific significant concerns are raised:
- What IT strategies are you using to meet the demands of your remote workforce?
- What steps are you taking to make sure your IT department is ready for this shift?
- How strong are your IT and security policies?
- Is there a mechanism in place in your IT infrastructure that allows you to operate remotely for an extended period?
Here’s how you can make sure that your remote employees get comprehensive IT support:
Set Standards for The Ideal Remote Setup
The primary challenge of working from home is securing the network infrastructure of remote workers. Not having control over what devices they use at home opens up your network to various threats.
Therefore, IT must be involved from the start in discussions regarding official work-from-home policies. It should play a significant role in establishing standards for the remote workforce. This consists of determining which tools and equipment the business will give to assist remote workers and which items are anticipated to be purchased by individual employees, such as Internet access and basic office furniture.
Additionally, establish whether secure access methods, such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and multi-factor authentication, would be required for your team. There’s also a need to figure out which device security standards to enforce and which communication tools will be enabled.
Assist Remote Employees During Downtime
When dealing with remote workers, it’s a must to provide continuous support and minimize downtime. This means finding the right tools and processes to support remote employees.
In some cases, a remote visual assistance tool is a good idea. This can aid a team member in navigating a particular area of the work environment, or it can allow a remote expert to see what a team member is seeing.
These remote-control tools make it easier for technicians to identify and troubleshoot computer issues. They can also help reduce the time and effort that goes into trying to troubleshoot a problem.
Lastly, having an end-to-end analytics framework can help identify the root cause of a problematic device and predict its performance issues before it impacts the end user experience.
Be Prepared to Resolve Various Technological Challenges
There are unexpected needs when transitioning to a remote work setup. Some organizations have encountered more enormous technical challenges than others. There are several concerns, including:
- Dealing with highly confidential information that must remain on internal systems at all times
- Accessing workplace networks through VPNs
- Remote workers needing more network bandwidth than what’s available to them
IT staff can give training to remote workers as to how they can handle those concerns. This would encourage self-service support for remote employees, which may help them deal with minor difficulties without contacting IT for help. This way, the pressure on the company help desk would be reduced.
Ensure That Team Communication Runs Smoothly
Companies that have embraced new technology take things a step further by electronically reproducing their workplace environments. Doing the following would help improve communication among the teams in your enterprise and boost participation:
- Install collaborative tools that may be used by users from their homes to work and share information securely.
- Dedicated virtual desktops may be deployed and configured, allowing users to access them from their home computers while still functioning as if they were in the office.
- Encourage face-to-to-face engagement by using a videoconferencing service.
- Allow staff to communicate and ‘be together’ by setting up a virtual water cooler.
Takeaway
As remote work becomes more popular, adequate IT support is being singled out as a crucial enabler in creating a unique and distinctive small workforce experience. To guarantee that the corporate work-from-home model is stable and effective, the IT team must lead and support the executive team through critical choices. Additionally, they should be well positioned to help manage remote onboarding and execute the most effective solutions and technologies to sustain team member productivity for years to come.
We encourage you to visit us at www.virteva.com to learn more or schedule a consultation.
