Making Working From Home Work

Fighting the cold and flu in the workplace is something most companies have already experienced. Many businesses are trying to determine how to prepare their offices and employees to work from home or work remote from anywhere. Learn to create a plan, educate employees and provide the tools that the staff needs.

Creating a Work from Home Plan

In creating a plan for your business, consider the following:

• Work from home options: Determine if it’s possible for part or all your workforce to work from home.
• Your company’s remote work policy: Now may be the time to put a policy in place if you don’t already have one.
• Communication: Define how your teams will communicate, the frequency required and how reporting on the progress of work will be handled. This information could be included in your policy.
• Employee information: Make sure you have an updated contact list for all employees.

Educating Employees

Encourage employees to prepare for the cold and flu season. Consider stocking your office with common cold and flu supplies and making those available to employees as needed.

Making sure everyone knows what the company plans are if an emergency occurs will minimize any confusion down the road.

Clearly communicate the work from home plan with all employees to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Work From Home Options

Office Depot brand Compucom reports:

• Many companies have already been moving to work from home flexibility for their workers.
• The most recent annual International Workplace Group Workplace Study shows 50 percent of global employees work outside their office 2.5 days a week.
• While U.S. companies lag behind much of the rest of the world on remote work, there is a trend to accelerate acceptance and lead to change.
• If your organization doesn’t already allow remote work and have access to collaboration tools, this is a good time to think about the alternatives. Tools for working remotely include setting up conference calls on mobile phones, accessing work email on mobile devices, and tricks for sharing documents and other information.

Have the right technology in place to prepare your workforce for remote work. Consider the following:

• Supply employees with laptops. You might also want to consider providing or loaning out monitors if that is what the office workspace offers.
• Make sure you have enough VPN licenses as well as enough bandwidth for access.
• Office phones need to either forward to cell phones or you can use a softphone application on the laptop.
• Encourage the use of video conferencing for interoffice communication.
• Use a cloud-based chat system or task management software to allow for remote collaboration.
• Make sure all remote work setups meet your company’s IT security protocols. For example, you may want to prohibit the use of personal computers.

Buying all the necessary hardware should be done sooner rather than later, so you can implement your plan right away, rather than scrambling to purchase equipment at the last minute. Solid technical services support may also be a wise investment.