Is your business one of the many that is now considering making home working permanent? Over the past year, many companies and organisations have experienced the benefits. Not only can it reduce your business costs, but it can also provide your employees with a better work/life balance, without impacting productivity.
But when it comes to home working, one of the major considerations for your business is technology. As your tech now needs to be portable, efficient and more secure, you’ll need to rethink your tech strategy if you go down the home-working route permanently.
Take a look at the following tech considerations for home working to help you continue to run your business effectively.
Choose the right equipment
For your employees to work from home effectively, they’re going to need to kit to do so. This could mean investing in new computers and considering more portable technology to enable them to work between the office and home as needed. You’ll need to assess what each employee needs, and ensure that they have the right software to use at home too.
Using the right tech can make your business easier to run, which is particularly important when you have dispersed teams.
Ensure everything is safe and secure
Home working carries increased IT security risks for your business. Not only do you lose some of the internal controls, but you’re also reliant on employees’ home internet networks for speed and reliability. Using IT managed services is an effective way of protecting your networks, allowing you to get help with outages and issues that could affect your business continuity. Refreshing employee training can also limit the human error that can lead to phishing attacks and data leaks.
Use the right tools to enable collaboration
Decreased opportunities for collaboration is another consideration for your business as a result of home working. But with the right collaboration tools, you can make things much easier for your teams to stay connected. Regular meetings and the option to meet face-to-face for brainstorms and other creative sessions can ensure your teams can still share ideas and bounce off each other to produce excellent work.
Assess your situation regularly
Home working could be a permanent or temporary solution for your business. As your business adapts and grows, you might find in the future that home working is no longer the most suitable option. It’s important to assess your situation regularly from a productivity and financial side, but also in relation to the health and wellbeing of your employees. Regular reviews of your operations can help you decide whether home working is the right move for you going forward.
A lot of businesses have adapted to home working over the past year, so there is a lot of best practice you can follow and learn from. Technology forms a key part of successful home working, and you’ll need to create a firm tech strategy to help ensure a smooth and successful transition.
