How to Convert Remote Work from a Burden into an Asset

If your company has at least a couple of employees who spend part of their workday in a different location, are you doing all you can to help them be as productive as possible? While remote work is beneficial in so many circumstances, there are a lot of caveats to it that must be considered. Listed below is how you can mitigate risk and keep remote work from becoming a liability for your organization.

Remote Work is a Significant Benefit for Employees (and You)

With remote work, employees are able to stay productive even in adverse situations, like sickness, poor weather conditions, or circumstances beyond their control.

Let’s say someone in their household gets sick, maybe one of their children comes down with a 24-hour bug. That employee can’t secure childcare on such short notice, so they’re stuck at home, taking care of their kid. 

Normally, without remote work, they’d have to take some sick or vacation time themselves, but with remote work, they can get work done while out of the office… even if they get mildly sick themselves.

Simply put, remote work gives your business the reassurance that even if your team members can’t be present in the office, they can get their work done and keep the engine that is your operations running smoothly.

The Downsides of Remote Work

If remote work is so good, what’s the big problem with it that could spell doom for your business?

Basically, it’s everything else: lack of control over employee devices, lack of encryption on home Internet connections, poor use of (or lack thereof) collaboration tools, and so on. There’s no guarantee that employees are keeping their at-home systems up to date against the latest security threats, and there’s no telling just how secure their at-home Internet connection is, either. Additionally, if your business doesn’t have a cloud-accessible collaboration platform, your employees might not be able to get in touch with each other when they need to most, which complicates teamwork and operations.

Fortunately, modern IT solutions provide opportunities for your business to shore up these weaknesses and transform remote work from a liability into an asset.

Ensure Remote Work is Safe, Controlled, and Effective

Technology offers plenty of ways to make sure your team can stay productive and secure while working out of the office.

For example: you can use a virtual private network to ensure that any Internet connection is a private one, allowing data to be encrypted while it’s moving to and from employees' devices. Similarly, you can use a mobile device management tool to keep track of the devices your team uses to access company resources, ensuring that they are updated, protected, and secured against today’s threats. Finally, collaboration tools with cloud access allow your team to stay in touch and work together even if they’re nowhere near each other physically.

Does all this sound great to you? Macro Systems can help you implement it for yourself. Learn more by calling us today at 703-359-9211.