Although the pandemic has rushed our country to work remotely this change has been in the works for some time. While some workers will go back to a classic office setting, most workers will retain their remote office. Many businesses are finding out that the costs that are cut by letting workers retain their remote work environment is far less than the costs included in providing workers with a formal office environment. Since this is our new norm, we must find new ways to help our employees adjust and remain productive. This is why so many companies are turning to managed IT service providers for answers. How are msp's able to help with this adjustment? Will my company benefit from help from help from an msp? What services are offered to help remote workers by msps? In this blog we will answer all of these questions plus some.
Challenges:
Working from home has many challenges. These challenges not only affect the worker, but also the employer. The employee has a responsibility to their employer to ensure they are staying productive, protecting company information, and taking care of company equipment. Although these tasks are being carried out by employees, employers must check in periodically to ensure these practices are being carried out correctly.
How MSP's can help:
This is the time that we as MSP's have been prepping for years. We had already been working from home and have tried all of the solutions known to man-kind to help us stay productive, secure, and ahead of the game. This is how we are able to offer the most cutting edge technology. It's because of these preparations that we are able to offer our customers the very best support possible during and after their transitions.
What we've learned:
After trying many different avenues to boost productivity and optimize security we have came to two conclusions:
1. Productive employees = happy employees
2. Happy employees want to protect their company.
With these things known, our main focus is to make sure you retain productive employees. Since they already want to protect your company the issue lies in education. If you want them to protect your company properly you have to educate them on how to do so.
Cultivating Productivity:
While sending encouraging e-mails and checking in can be somewhat helpful, with experience we've noticed that employees typically need more accountability. This is why we have equipped our customers with time tracking software that is able to help them stay productive. Everyone performs better when they are being watched and monitored. This is why employee monitoring is so crucial to the remote working culture. For more productive employees you can allow self time tracking, and for those that need a little more motivation it can record all of their time in the background while they are working. This gives you an insight as to what you are paying your employees for. Should they be spending less time in e-mail and more time in quickbooks? This will give you the insight you need to help point your employees in the right direction and set them up for success. To learn more about the ethics of employee monitoring check out our previous blog for more info.
Extra security Measures:
With the pandemic surging through the world, hackers have become very privy on the fact that we have transitioned to remote work. A person's home (which wouldn't would have been conisidered a low threat before) is now the number one target for hackers. The reason for this is because they know that employees are working from home and targeting a home network to get the company's information is much easier than targeting a company with an established network. This is why we have implemented home cyber security for each employee as a must have.
Can my business benefit from MSP services?
The short answer would be yes. Although consulting with an MSP about your business challenges and goals is highly encouraged. Most businesses think that they have things under control but in reality, could benefit from MSP services in a great way. As we've seen in recent months even the most technically proactive companies such as Wells Fargo, Chase, Google, and Zoom have inconsistencies in their network that allowed for massive data breaches costing them millions of dollars. Although you will mostly hear of the big name business's breaches, 80% of targeted businesses are small businesses. Contact us today to set up a free network threat assesment and see where your company scores.
