Why Every Business Needs a Remote-Work Plan

By Scott Park

As the old saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.”

For years, businesses have weighed the benefits and disadvantages of employees working from home. While these discussions were taking place, circumstances such as longer commute drives, natural disasters and now, COVID-19, pushed the idea of remote working to the forefront. Although many businesses discussed workplace flexibility, not many put an actual plan in place to ensure a smooth transition.

There are many benefits to having a remote-work plan; the main one is that it minimizes business workflow when it becomes necessary for employees to work from home, and – as we’re well aware – these times don’t necessarily announce themselves in advance. Although the COVID-19 spread is a rare situation, it’s forced many organizations to quickly get their employees up and running at home for everyone’s health and safety.

The impact on your employees is another story. Besides trying to cope with social isolation, kids, and changes in routines, your staff now faces some important decisions: how to set up their home office, selecting the right hardware and software, accessing files, communicating with team members, management’s expectations, and knowing who to contact for what information.

The COVID-19 situation is a lot for anyone to deal with and formulating a remote-work plan can help ease some of the anxiety and stress your employees may encounter during this time.

Setting up your remote-work plan

The first step is to involve the right people in creating the plan, including your internal or external IT department, management, HR department, and office administrator.

In the plan:

1. Map out jobs and tasks that could take place outside of the office.
2. Audit your IT hardware and software, asking yourself the questions below.
3. Create a communication protocol.
4. Don’t forget about the human component; don’t discount your staff’s stress and anxiety around the situation itself and the move to working from home, which will have challenges of its own. “Staff support” must be part of every plan.  

Here are some IT questions to ask yourself to ensure your employees have the right hardware, software, and communication equipment to work from home:

1. How will your employees access their work remotely?

• Do they have laptops or mobile devices that they can take home to access their work?
• Can they use their home computers for work purposes? Do these computers have the right software and hardware to access the required work?
• Are your organization’s documents stored in the Cloud (such as Microsoft OneDrive or SharePoint)?
• Does your organization use web-based applications? Are these applications installed on your employees’ hardware? Do your employees know how to access your web-based applications, including email, from home?

2. Do you have the right communication equipment?

• How will you deal with incoming calls to the office?
• How will team members communicate with each other (for instance, by using software, like Microsoft Teams)?
• Will employees use their personal phones, or will you use web-based software? Do you have an employee remote-contact information list readily available to distribute?

3. How will meetings take place? 

• Do you need web-based meeting software (such as Microsoft Teams)?
• Do you require cameras on your employees’ devices for meetings?

4. Who will they contact with specific questions? 

• Who is the contact for hardware or software questions?
• Who is the contact for setting up communication devices and systems?
• Who is the contact to request hardware or software purchases?
• Who is the contact to arrange emotional-support services?

Checks and balances

You’ll want to constantly evaluate whether your remote-work plan is working to ensure productivity, health and safety, and security, and make amendments as appropriate. Some strategies you can implement:

• Create and distribute your at-home work policies.
• Microsoft offers MyAnalytics, which helps discover and track work habits by providing an in-depth look at work patterns, including focus, wellbeing, collaboration, communication habits, and tips. It helps employees and their managers optimize tasks and make them more efficient.
• Use communication software that shows when employees are available, at home or in the office, or offline (such as Microsoft Teams or a cloud-based phone system).
• Follow-up with employees to ensure compliance (ask them to take a photo of their home office) and if they’ve experienced any difficulties working remotely. You can use this information to update your plan, processes and employee wellbeing.
• Ensure your employees have the right insurance and security for hardware damage or liability.
• Ensure the organization has the right insurance for any contingencies.
• Ensure security issues are monitored and that employees have safety protocols installed on their hardware.

Every businesses’ remote workplan requirements are going to be a little different. The important thing is that your business has a well thought-out, flexible plan in place, so when – not if – the next time you need one, you’ll be well prepared.

About the author: Scott Park is the Accounting & Office Administrator at 365 Technologies Inc. – delivering Worry-Free IT™ support and services in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Scott is pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce from Athabasca University. He can be reached at 204-488-3655, scott@365tech.ca or www.365tech.ca.