Remote Workforce Technology: Where To Focus Now
How are you supporting remote worker software and hardware needs?
The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced an unexpected increase in work-from-home employees, and along with it many new challenges for IT support teams today. From compliance worries to performance and equipment gaps, many organizations are not equipped to support employees in this unexpected climate.
As an IT leader, it is absolutely critical for you to set reasonable expectations with your users and executive teams about what is possible within your current infrastructure limits. Every request you receive is urgent. Therefore, prioritizing these asks to maximize your available resources is essential.
We hosted a webinar featuring our top collaboration and digital workspace experts to dive into some immediate recommendations and actionable tips for supporting remote workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Click above to check out the recording, or read on here for the highlights.
What is the best way to prioritize requests?
This image shows the different modalities you may be tasked to support for your end users, according to the number of participants, type of collaboration, and complexity of deployment.
Consider the different modalities you are tasked with enabling for your end users. Look at this image as a reference, depicting these functions from green, to yellow, to red (level of complexity for deployment).
What do users expect as basic functionality?
What is considered nice-to-have?
What can you go without in the short-term, to free up capacity needed for the total volume increase?
For example: email and document access, shown in green, are typically the easiest requirements to fulfill. However, your unified communications suite, even basic voice and voicemail functionality, can present circuit challenges with an increase in work-from-home users. Your priorities should be based on alignment of existing infrastructure limits to user requests. Consider using this framework to organize your asks and needs.
Supporting Remote Workforce: 5 Key Considerations
Burwood’s consultants outline five key areas for consideration as you create your remote workforce support strategy. Use these categories as a framework to make sure every vulnerability is addressed.
Security
Keeping data secure is the number one priority. How are your users accessing corporate data and services, and do you have program in place to protect it? If you don’t have an identity management platform in place today, there are tools available that can be set up relatively quickly. Check out the webinar for a deep discussion.
Mobility
BYOD and CYOD (carry your own device) programs are essential to enabling secure user mobility. But what if you are relying on new personal devices that aren’t part of your program? Virtual desktop architectures (such as an Azure tenant environment) are an excellent route to getting around lack of control at the device level.
Capacity
For many organizations, capacity is the central issue. Can your existing infrastructure support the new demands being placed on your network? Without a hardwired in-office connection, new remote workers place strains on your existing circuits. In this area especially, prioritizing requests is critical since you are limited by what you have today.
Provisioning
Getting these services and applications to your users may require changes to your provisioning process. Instead of on-premises access, consider an application store. If you need to keep services on-premises, consider SCCM or other tools to push out to end-users. Speed vs. packaging is a critical consideration as well.
Management
Managing users remotely can present challenges, especially for users who are used to an in-office support system. How are you funneling support calls to your help desk? This can present new telephony and data requirements.
Working From Home: The Human Element
The reality of working from home is different for each end user we support. From juggling childcare to co-working with a spouse, sticking to a 9-5 schedule is the least of challenges for many new remote users; not to mention the anxiety and real health concerns brought on by COVID-19. As technologists, we can try to minimize work anxiety for our users by designing solutions based on the technology our they already have. Leverage users' personal devices and your existing investments in every possible way.
Creating A Software Strategy That Lasts
These five key areas will apply to your remote workforce needs today, as well as tomorrow. Take a smart look at your existing infrastructure to make decisions that will gradually improve your remote worker support posture.
View the webinar for an interactive discussion on these topics. And stay tuned for more deep-dive webinar sessions from Burwood on remote work voice technology, malicious attack prevention, and more.
See Burwood’s official response to the COVID-19 pandemic here.
