How to Quickly Shift to a Work-From-Home Business Model to Maximize Productivity in Today’s Coronavirus Environment

As a business owner today, you are now facing unprecedented challenges to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic. You are asked to self-isolate and practice social distancing to “flatten the curve.” You have been told to allow your employees to work from home to reduce possible exposure and slow the spread of COVID-19.

These are all reasonable requests given the extraordinary circumstances. However, as a business owner, you also need to maximize productivity, bring in revenue, and try to grow your business in these difficult times. How can you accomplish these goals when your office is now a ghost town, and productivity has fallen off a cliff?

The answer lies in setting up your office to function remotely. If you’ve never implemented a work-from-home policy before, it may seem like a whole different world. Managing an entirely remote workforce goes far beyond giving your employees a laptop and reminding them to check in every once in a while. After all, there are many factors most business owners haven’t ever had to consider, such as:

  • What technologies do I need?
  • How can my employees work from home without compromising the security of our network?
  • How can I make this new work environment as easy, comfortable, and productive as possible?

I understand these are different times. I know that “business as usual” is going to be quite different for an undetermined amount of time. But together, I can help you adjust to today’s new normal by giving you the tools, technologies, and insights to create a secure and productive work-from-home business environment. Here are three crucial considerations to getting you set up and running a successful work-from-home business:

  1. Don’t allow employees to use home computers or devices.

    2. Their mindset may be, “Well, I’m working from home, so I may as well use my home computer.” This kind of thinking is a dangerous mistake. I work very hard to ensure company computers and networks are secure and protected from malware, viruses, and cyber-attacks. On the other hand, most home computers contain tons of downloaded music, videos, pictures, and more. Because it’s more exposed, those computers can invite malware into your network. If possible, provide a company-approved and secured computer/laptop for employees to use at home.

  2. Secure their Wi-Fi access point.

    3. Without a secure Wi-Fi access point, you’re leaving a back door open to hackers. That’s because Wi-Fi signals are often broadcast far beyond your employees’ homes and out into streets. Yes, drive-by hacking is prevalent among cybercriminals today. A few tips for securing your employees’ Wi-Fi access points:

    • Use encryption and a more complex password
    • Hide your network name
    • Use a firewall

    These security measures are not difficult to set up. But if you have any questions or need assistance, I will be happy to help get your employees set up remotely.

  3. Use a two-factor authentication VPN.

    4. VPN is an abbreviation of the phrase, virtual private network, which is an encrypted tunnel that goes directly to the network in your office. Ideally, you’ll want your VPN to support two-factor authentication (2FA). 2FA (or multi-factor authentication, MFA) means it’s doubly secure because your employees will need to call in to access the network. If you don’t have a VPN for your employees to use, you can consider other services, such as GoToMyPC or Zoho. While these products are not as secure, at least they keep your home network from being exposed.

As a business owner myself, I, too, must pivot and work differently than I ever have before. However, because I have the technology and infrastructure in place, I am still surprisingly productive.

I want to help your business survive and thrive during today’s unique environment. If you and your IT team need extra hands right now… or solutions to help your employees work SECURELY from home… I have software tools and resources I’d like to offer you to keep your business as productive as possible.

Here’s a link to my calendar if you wish to book a quick 15-minute call to discuss.

Please know that this is not a sales call but merely an outreach to help a fellow business owner stay afloat during tough times.

Thanks, and safe computing!