If your organization never had remote workers, it’s possible that there are no processes in place to allow this. As a result, here are 4 tips to help you prepare for remote work in your organization.

Assess Employees’ Remote Workspace

At this point in time, you do not know if employees have laptops or computers at home to work remotely. Therefore, distribute a survey asking about available workspace, laptops, and internet connection. Use the results to determine the costs of getting every employee properly set up at home. Adjust your budget and prepare for purchasing in bulk. Purchases may include, but not limited to, laptops, mice, desks and chairs.

Further, look into an IT Asset Management tool to keep track of the devices owned by the organization and who is using what.

Set up Remote Control

Then, invest in a Remote Control solution. This provides remote support for employees. Further, it enables employees to connect to PC’s back in the office. Thus, reducing the cost of purchasing take-home laptops.

It also limits the number of new processes to connect every remote device to the network.

There are many free solutions, like TeamViewer, to highly secure enterprise options, like PC-Duo Remote Control.

Regardless novel viruses, here are a few reasons to offer the option for remote work:

1. 1. Eliminate fear amongst employees
2. 2. Reduce the chances of employees getting sick
3. 3. Give parents the ability to be with their children if schools and daycares are closed
4. 4. Let employees focus on work and not on the risks of catching the virus

Plan for Video meetings

A good way to keep people connected is through meetings. It is likely you may already use a video conferencing tool like Zoom, Skype or Go2Meeting. However, take it to the next step and make video meetings mandatory. This encourages meeting attendees to participate in the call and concentrate on the discussions.

Don’t Break Communication

With remote work, more energy needs to be put into communication. Set weekly or daily virtual meetings that would normally take place in person. Then, assess if more meetings are required. Also, get the entire team to use communication applications like Microsoft’s Teams, Google’s Hangout Chats, Skype or Slack. As a result, every employee can communicate with one another without breaks in communication.