Preparing your company for remote workers amid Coronavirus outbreak

As COVID-19 (aka Coronavirus) wreaks havoc on daily operations, people may start asking questions about their ability to work from home. There are a few things to take into consideration with remote workers, especially if you’re in an organization that is not used to having remote workers. For those dealing with the financial and healthcare sectors, this task can be even more of a challenge than what you anticipate. Here are a few things to take into consideration and start implementing. By the way, having a good disaster recovery plan for I.T. operations is never a bad idea. It’s just bad that everyone has to test it in real time instead of being prepared to make the shift.

Here’s a to-do list to prepare for remote workers:

• Not all wi-fi is secure.
  This is especially true for residential service or “free” wi-fi in coffee shops. If you deal with protected information or information that has to stay secure, consider asking your I.T. department or service provider to implement a VPN service. This will help reduce the risk of information being compromised in transmission. Fair warning: VPN services are a pain to implement and maintain.
• Your intranet may not be accessible.
  Keep in mind that intranets might not be accessible unless your employees are on the internal network. This can be solved with a properly-functioning, above-mentioned VPN service, but an alternate solution may be needed to temporarily allow access to this information. Put together a resource list of links that are normally available and start finding ways to make this information accessible outside the main network.
• Desktops might not be wi-fi enabled.
  Computers used in large corporate environments might not have a wireless adapter and therefore might not work in your employee’s home office environment. You can either purchase an external wireless adapter and set it up or migrate the data and information to a laptop or other device that works on wi-fi. There’s a very slim chance that the employee’s router at home is anywhere near where they’ll set up their workstation, so address that in advance if they are planning on taking their workstation home with them.
• Workstations managed by a server are going to suffer.
  This can also be addressed by remote settings and VPN’s, but keep in mind that companies working in a server environment might have to make and test some policies and settings on the server to allow remote access. This can also affect the ability for a worker to print as they might not be allowed to add and remove printers on their home network.
• Encourage cleaning keyboard and mobile devices on a regular basis.
  Coronavirus can survive on hard surfaces and mobile devices and keyboards are a great way to spread the virus. There are products available, like Whoosh! and PhoneSoap to help combat the cooties, but just make sure whatever you use is safe to use on electronics.

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