Your employees provide the heart and soul of your business, and essentially,its success stands or falls on their efforts. For this reason, you need to ensure that you have everything in place for them to do their jobs to the best of their ability. This does not just mean the workers you see in the office—but also those who only come in occasionally or work entirely remotely in another state or even the other side of the world.
These people have a different set of requirements that you need to address if you will get the best from their efforts on your behalf, which are highlighted in the following article.
1. A Basic Set Up
Unlike those who work in the office daily, remote workers might not have a dedicated workspace at home. This can lead to fluctuations in efficiency if they are distracted by daily life around them. Therefore, you should do what you can to financea dedicated space for them, along with a desk and chair, so they can work comfortably and achieve the best results possible.
They will also need a reliable internet service so that they can work for you uninterrupted. To make this easier, you should have them search for the most reliable ways to access the internet in Los Angeles (or wherever they happen to be). This includes paying towards any service upgrades they require. After all, you provided them with a top-of-the-range laptop to do your work,so ensuring they can use it efficiently makes sense.
2. Communication and Support
Because you are not seeing these people face-to-face, you mustensure that you maintain a rapport with them and that they can communicate freely with the rest of the workforce. This is where communication tools such as Slack or Zoom are vital, and collaboration software such as Microsoft 365 can be used to great effect. This way,distance does not impede contact, and long email chains do not distribute work.
This communication also needs to extend to vital support services such asIT and HR so that they have the same access as everyone else. It may also be prudent to have meetings at the start and end of every day so that people know when to close their laptops so they don’t work on and add to those experiencing burnout.
3. Security and Training
People working remotely will have different security concerns than if they worked in the office full time. You will need to ensure that they use and update any antivirus or firewalls they have been provided with, and you could also implement multifactor authentication. This will help should a laptop be stolen, as the thief will not be able to gain access to your data by cracking the password alone. Insisting that they use a VPN can also be advantageous, along with advising them not to use public Wi-Fi.
This is not the only training you will need to give them, as they should also receive basic end-user training to spot cyber threats to help keep your business and themselves safe.
