{"id":8790,"date":"2020-04-13T12:31:47","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T12:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.therealpbx.com\/blog\/?p=8790"},"modified":"2020-06-17T07:52:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T07:52:31","slug":"remote-work-best-practices-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therealpbx.com\/blog\/remote-work-best-practices-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote Work Best Practices During COVID-19 For Companies And Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Coronavirus has put the entire planet on a halt affecting precious lives, businesses, and economic activities. We are dealing with a new type of SARS coronavirus, which is spreading in an unprecedented way. Horrifically, people showing no symptoms can also spread the disease to other people. WHO has already declared it as a pandemic<\/a>, and world governments are enforcing total lockdowns to curb the spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationwide lockdowns, businesses also have to close their offices and ask their employees to work from home<\/a>. Now, to some companies, it is not new to work with a remote workforce, but for others, it has come as a headache. According to a study by SmallBizGenius<\/a>, around 44% of companies around the world don’t allow remote work, and if you are in this list, then making the transition will be difficult if you don’t plan well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allowing your employees to work remotely seems daunting at first, but with the right type of tools and coherent guidelines, you can make a swift transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we will discuss some\nof the best practices for companies to make their work from home campaign to\ncurb the spread of COVID-19 a successful one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an extensive IT strategy and\ncloud telephony solutions, you can help your employees to be productive from\nanywhere and ensure business continuity<\/a>. Here we will discuss some of the\nbest remote work practices during COVID 19 for both employers and\nemployees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Remote Work Best Practices For Companies During COVID-19 <\/strong>   <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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1. Set clear objectives for remote employees  <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first and foremost step that you need to take for\nmaking your work from a home campaign successful is to define a clear set of guidelines\nfor your employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a well-documented set of protocols and company\npolicies will help your employees to understand your expectations from them.\nManagers should guide the executives with details such as what they need to do\nand the quality expected for them to finish the task before the target\ndate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Setup tools for team communication and collaboration  <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Setting up proper tools for team communication and collaboration is critical for your organization to offer business continuity. Before implementing work from home for your employees, you first have to understand the communication requirements of various teams in your company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discuss with managers and discuss how teams will\ncommunicate with each other to discuss critical tasks? Do they require\nreal-time collaboration, such as creating presentations, data reporting, or for\nany other jobs? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can replace day to day meetings with online video or\naudio conferencing. There are many cloud communication suites which offer\nadvanced features such as screen sharing, remote desktop control, etc., <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Invest in cloud communications  <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Cloud communication offers secure and reliable telephony\nsolutions to your business. With a cloud communication solution<\/a> in place for your organization, your\nagents can receive calls from anywhere they are located currently. As social\ndistancing and remote working are the need of the hour, your agents do not have\nto come to your office for dialing or receiving clients’ calls. You can quickly\nset up call forwarding to any cell phone using cloud telephony solutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are numerous benefits of investing in a sound cloud\ncommunication system, including: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Flexible pricing plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Call queue management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Hosted IVR solutions<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Integrations with third-party business applications such\nas CRM, sales enablement tools, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Security  <\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Data is critical for your business, and keeping it secure\nis your responsibility. In the office, you would have taken proper measures to\nsecure critical data by implementing firewalls, VPNs, physical protection of\nservers, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, your IT team should consider all the aspects of how\nyou can keep the company data secure and physical devices from any hacking\nattacks. Implement two-factor authentication, data encryption, and advanced\nsecurity settings of physical devices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Continue to onboard new talent   <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While your employees might not be visiting the office, it\ndoesn’t mean that you should stop expanding your team. Make a few adjustments\nin your recruitment strategy to continue onboarding new talent in your\norganization. Your HR department can conduct telephonic interviews for\nscreening candidates and use online video conferencing tools for face to face\ninterviews. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Plan for increased help desk support  <\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As employees are now working from home, they might come\nacross various technical issues such as not being able to access their office\nworkstation remotely, backup drive not working, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To establish a smooth workflow and ensure that the business\noperations don’t come to a stop due to these technical issues, you should plan\nand direct your help desk support team to prioritize support requests and\nhandle them efficiently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 7. Backup plan if anything goes wrong  <\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Just like you have a business continuity plan to deliver\nyour services during these tough situations, you should also make a contingency\nplan if something goes wrong in plan A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if your employees don’t have a good laptop to work\nfrom home? What if they don’t have a high bandwidth internet connection? You\nshould address these issues and think solutions for multiple scenarios where\nsituations can become more challenging for your business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this moment, businesses must retain existing customers\nas in the future, and it will be challenging to acquire new ones until the\neconomic situation of the world is restored to normalcy. Therefore, plan well\nto support your business continuity operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Remote Work Best Practices For Employees During COVID-19  <\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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