Remote working saw a steep increase in 2020. Now, many employers are offering different working models dependent on each role. While some may still work within an office, others may spend part, or all, of their time working from home. In fact, over a third of employees stated that they would resign if their employer mandated a full return to the office.
Allowing remote working, or even hybrid working, can involve a lot of change. You may have concerns about work completion and security implications when your employees aren’t physically present. Challenging some of these myths can help you build a positive remote working policy and even improve overall productivity.
The first myth about remote working can be how it will affect both internal and external communications. Some may believe that employees will be harder to reach when working from home. However, due to the number of modern technology solutions, that doesn’t need to be the case.
Implementing proactive business telecoms regardless of employee location can help to solve any issues with communications. This will allow your team to make and receive calls on a desktop softphone, personal or business smartphone, and physical headset while still using their designated business number.
Keeping in touch with your team and your clients is important, whether you need to discuss business plans, your employee requires assistance, or even to ensure that employees don’t feel isolated when working from home.
Rather than relying on inter-company emails, you could modernise your internal communications using business instant messaging. In particular, Microsoft Teams allows you to not only send and receive messages but also host calls and video conferencing, ideal for meetings or collaborations.
Remote working requires a lot of trust on both sides. Employees need to know that they will still be able to switch off outside of their working hours, while employers want to ensure that work still gets completed as effectively as working in the office.
An employee who works from home may face a number of distractions from other members of the household, pets, or even the temptation to complete household tasks during the working day. They need to remember that, on average, working from home saves them around 73 minutes that would otherwise be spent commuting as well as a reduction in fuel consumption when driving to and from work is your preferred way to travel.
Although employees need to be held accountable for the work they do, you should also do your bit to ensure they have all the right tools required to be as productive as possible.
This can include:
Doing so can help your employees to maximise their productivity regardless of working location as well as implement the correct training to ensure all employees understand the security risks when working from remote locations.
Cyber security threats exist anywhere, not just when remote working although remote working can pose a particularly high level of threat if your employees are unaware of the risks. A good business will be proactive in its management of cyber threats.
The most common risks of remote working can be:
Prioritising cyber security, including when remote working, could drastically decrease the likelihood of a cyber-attack.
IT problems can occur regardless of whether you implement office or remote working models. The most common IT Support issues could have a serious impact on the working day.
Opting for fully managed remote IT Support can be a great way of not only fixing issues when they arise, but also taking a more proactive approach to IT management. A good IT Support provider will fully learn your systems to see what hardware and software you use, as well as how it can be both secured and maintained. This will result in increased uptime and less breakages moving forward.
It is possible for our IT Support technicians to remotely access employee computers, make changes, and adjust configurations. This means that remote working doesn’t necessarily have to equate to decreased uptime and minimised support.
Ensuring regular communication can be helpful, whether that involves work-related information or even friendly chats with other members of the team. Instead of chatting in a break room, employees could instead make the most of video and instant messaging tools.
Those same tools can also be used for collaborations. In particular, your employees may benefit from Microsoft 365 software that allows them to work jointly on a project, make changes in real time, and leave comments for each other.
You need to ensure that your workforce is capable of remote working successfully. Therefore, you may first want to consider equipping them with tools and programs that will increase the chance of success. Discussing your IT requirements, and ensuring uptime is prioritised, can help to boost productivity, and reduce employee frustration.
Using great IT Support is only half of the process. You should also regularly check in with each employee to see if there are any issues, as well as assess if remote working is right for that individual. Doing so could help your employees to feel heard, which is vital for positive business growth.
Talk to us about how we can help set-up a secure remote working office.
Verity Armstrong
Verity is our resident wordsmith. She spent time honing her skills as a freelance writer for a number of different industries from 2020 to 2023. Now, Verity writes about IT support and cyber security for Syn-Star. Outside of this, she curates content for Mindful Me, a blog about well-being and leading a more positive lifestyle.
Qualifications: BA (hons) Psychology, MA (Merit) Youth Justice, Community Safety & Applied Criminology
In-house training: HubSpot SEO, SEO 2, Digital Marketing
Favourite movie: Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings
Favourite band: Hollowstar
Favourite food: Pad Thai or enchiladas
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Verity Armstrong
Verity is our resident wordsmith. She spent time honing her skills as a freelance writer for a number of different industries from 2020 to 2023. Now, Verity writes about IT support and cyber security for Syn-Star. Outside of this, she curates content for Mindful Me, a blog about well-being and leading a more positive lifestyle.
Qualifications: BA (hons) Psychology, MA (Merit) Youth Justice, Community Safety & Applied Criminology
In-house training: HubSpot SEO, SEO 2, Digital Marketing
Favourite movie: Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings
Favourite band: Hollowstar
Favourite food: Pad Thai or enchiladas
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You and your team are able to see where they are using their time and how productive they are actually being. Also they are able to clock in and out, so really good for flexi-working.
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If you would like to know what your team is doing and how productive they are being, we are able to monitor them and create screenshots of what they are working on. This can be run in normal or stealth mode.
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From sponsoring local community football teams, to engaging with charity fundraiser days, we believe it’s important to continually strive to do good for the better of others.
We have members who volunteer with youth organisations, are engaged with the Round Table, run marathons and volunteer at events where we may be needed. Every charity receives a discounted IT and Telecoms service too.
Protecting your digital data is crucial for every business and this can start with the industry-leading security we offer. The Syn-Star specialists can help with identifying any vulnerabilities within your IT systems and act accordingly to ensure cyber-attacks and data breaches are mitigated.
Your business will never fall behind with its technology when you work with Syn-Star.
We understand IT and Telecoms for your business is an investment, but it’s important to use the best resources available to enable the growth of your business. Our IT Consultancy and Virtual IT Director Services are available to support you with how you use your business technology for years to come.
Syn-Star can conduct quick and easy phishing exercises to identify people within your team who need to improve on their knowledge around fraudulent emails and how they can be alerted to these threats.
At Syn-Star, our experts can proactively work to understand exactly what software you need to support with the business operations. Whether you need a listening ear on what software to choose, or would like to seek some specialist knowledge, we’re here to help where we can.
At Syn-Star, we keep Telecoms simple. There’s so much available to help UK companies with their communications. VoIP systems, fixed landline, cloud phone systems, SIP trunking and more. Contact us for further details.
Desk phones, cordless phones or conference phones, Syn-Star can provide you with whatever you need.
From conference calling facilities to the headsets which work best for your team, we’re able to provide all the equipment you need and complete any telecoms job from start to finish.
There is no need to be in the office to make and receive phone calls from your company’s number. Our market-leading Telecoms platform gives you the flexibility of desk phones, soft phones and mobile apps as standard.
Whether your team works remotely, or perhaps staff are on a business trip anywhere in the world, calls can still be made, and people are reachable via phone wherever they go.
With a range of products, our team can support you by installing exactly what you need for internet connectivity. We work with the very best products to provide speedy bandwidths which play a part in the increased productivity of your team.
