The novel Coronavirus represents a grave health risk for many people. Our response, including social distancing, self-quarantining, and even mandated quarantining, is necessary to contain the spread of the virus. As a result, challenges arise in running our businesses and maintaining some semblance of smooth operations.
Our sights naturally become focused on the near term and how to survive this crisis. We must get through this. We have important products and services to offer. Our employees and customers need us. We need to be there for them.
Enable your employees to stay productive and engaged
Clearly, COVID-19 has quickly surfaced the need for employees to work from home. Once you have identified the employees and the jobs or roles within your company that can perform their functions from their home or remotely in general, we recommend that you focus on the following in order to maintain operations and continue service to your customers.
- For those that answer calls, either route incoming calls to their cell phone or make use of softphones (software-based phone interface) which are available through most phone systems.
- Ensure that you have an instant messaging solution in place for quick and fast response communications.
- Utilize video conferencing / screen sharing software so that meetings can still be conducted with staff, customers or vendors in multiple locations.
- If your staff utilizes software that is installed on their office computer, you should have a VPN (virtual private network) in place and a method for remote desktop access such as that provided through Windows or Chrome Remote Desktop. Staff can also bring computers home but will most likely need the VPN connection to your office network to access file or application servers.
- For staff that doesn’t have a dependency on locally installed software, they can most likely access all of their applications through browser or cloud-based software.
- For employees that need equipment, have laptops or Chromebooks shipped directly to their homes.
Remote solutions you can implement now
If you don’t have the solutions in place for your staff to work productively from home or for your business to continue effectively servicing your customers during this crisis, consider the recommendations below. Most of these solutions can be implemented quickly and are cost-effective solutions, especially in the near term.
- Secure Remote Desktop Connections (eliminates need for separate VPN)
- Instant messaging solutions
- If you use Gsuite, Google Hangouts Chat & Hangouts Meet
- If you use Office 365, Instant Messaging with Microsoft Teams
- Rocket.Chat is another option
- For video conference & screen sharing
- Fax
- Cloud Phone System
- Online / Digital Agreements
- Send invoices & receive payments online
- Simple ecommerce / Amazon marketplace / Shopify
- Implementing Chat on your website
- Utilizing 3rd Party Fulfillment Service for Shipping Products
- For Restaurants – Online order & delivery services
- Another tip to avoid the need for printing and scanning
- Have employees use camera phone to take pictures of hard copy documents
Of course, more comprehensive cloud-based solutions exist for most of the needs above, some of which can satisfy multiple needs within single systems, such as unified communications software and ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.
Take care of your priorities first: make sure your employees are safe and productive and that you continue to service your customers.
Once you get through this crisis, and you will, you can consider longer-term solutions that better position your company to sustain future catastrophic events and add even more value to your staff and your customers.
We are here to help.
“When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge — every adversity — contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.”
― Roy T. Bennett
