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How to Equip Your Employees to Work Remotely

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | How to Equip Your Employees to Work RemotelyWhen you’re forced to shift the operations of your business to a completely remote format for your workers, as many companies have been recently, you might not know exactly where to begin. Most business owners won’t have planned for a situation where none of their employees are permitted to be present at the business’s physical location.

If you are among those companies that are finding themselves in a bit of a tough situation at the moment, in that you don’t have all the resources on hand for your employees to properly perform their jobs from remote locations, it might take a bit of time to get everything in order, but there are plenty of options available. Read on for tips on how you can best equip your employees to work remotely.

Get the Right Tech

The first thing that your employees will need to have at the ready is the right tech to do their jobs. While your offices are probably set up with desktop computers, printers, and other equipment that your workers need to do their work, few people have everything they need to do their jobs from home. Furthermore, it isn’t necessarily advisable to allow your employees to use their personal computers for sensitive work.

As such, it is a good idea to look into laptop rentals for your employees to use throughout the shelter-in-place protocols. You can rent as many laptops as you need for as long as you want. Moreover, you can ensure that these laptops have all the necessary software installed on them, allowing your employees to work remotely.

Increase Accessibility

Once your employees have the right equipment on hand, they will then need to have access to your company’s files and servers. Perhaps your physical offices are set up with hard drives that contain all your business’s digital files and data, or maybe you have a cloud-based server that is only accessible by computers at your offices. Both scenarios present a challenge.

Start by investing in a cloud-based server, if you do not already have one in place. There are many benefits to doing so, benefits that will last beyond the remote working order. Not only will your employees be able to access company information from remote locations, but you will also be able to enjoy automatic software updates to your systems, which will help to keep them running efficiently and securely.

Focus on Communication

As well as the right equipment and access to files and folders, you will also need to ensure that the lines of communication between employees, teams, and management are open. Use communication tools such as Slack and Zoom to ensure that you are regularly meeting with your employees and checking in.

There will certainly be some hiccups and rough patches during this process, but as long as your workers know that they can reach out and collaborate with you to troubleshoot any issues, you should be able to keep things running effectively until your employees can once again return to your offices.

Rules Of The Road: Looking After Your Traveling Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Nomadic Employees|Rules Of The Road: Looking After Your Traveling EmployeesAny good business leader knows how to look after their employees in-house. But when your employees are out on the road this can prove a bit more difficult. In order to make sure that your nomadic employees are well catered for, it’s about a combination of connection but also looking after their best interests, as well as making sure that they feel part of the team.

Supporting Them On The Road

Every employee wants to feel part of the team even though they are hundreds of miles away. Instead of occasionally checking in on them, be consistent with your communication. Not only this but you need to make sure that you have the appropriate components in place to look after them should something happen. Because they are out on the road risking themselves in numerous ways you don’t have the same level of control over their welfare. And this means that should the worst-case scenario happen when they are in transit, that you have the best truck accident lawyers and legal help available. It’s crucial to provides a safety net for your employees when they are out on the road.

You should also consider travel insurance, especially if there are problems with lost luggage or delayed flights.

Keeping In Touch

Employees may like the idea of being away from the office but they still need to do a job. It’s about that fine balance of letting them do their work but without constantly bombarding them with messages. As a compromise, it’s worth deciding on a time for you to check in on your employees. Sometimes it’s not possible, especially if there are travel issues or time differences. But you may want to think about giving them their own personal VPN just in case there are technical issues everywhere so they can do their work but you can also communicate via wi-fi call.

Be Transparent In Your Travel Policies

In order to make sure that you are covered in a legal sense you need a proper travel policy that protects your employees when they are out on the road, but also make sure that your liabilities are limited. It’s crucial to minimize confusion and when you have a policy in place, go through it with legal professionals but also make sure that your employees understand it to the letter. When we are out on the road there’s a lot of components we have no control over. In order to be comprehensive in the legal sense, you’ve got to keep the regulatory components in place.

Check In With Them Personally

Being on the road can be an adventure the first couple of times but after that, it just gets boring, not to mention isolating. In order to make sure that they are okay you should check in with them on a regular basis. It’s not just about the job that they are there to do but when you get in contact with them you might want to think about seeing how they are. If they’re feeling a little bit low it is a good idea to give them something that can help keep their morale up. It could be some extra money through petty cash to go for a meal or to the movies.

Being on the road is a crucial role for many businesses now, but it can be a difficult one. Make sure you look after your employees effectively.