Essential Technology for Remote Workers

The office is a tool designed to enhance business. Remember the office? Some long for the day when they can get back there, while many remote workers enjoy not having to physically be there anymore. One thing is certain: many people are still working from home, having been sent there in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many, with no return date in sight. Below is a look at a couple pieces of technology that are popular with the remote work crowd. 

When you last were at the office, you had everything that you needed to do your job: your work PC, all the accessories, access to the Internet, printers, and other internal resources. During the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders, you didn’t have access. You may be back at your office today, but if you aren’t you are probably using the mandatory COVID-19 home office technology. 

Laptop

The home office isn’t like the real office. Going into March 2-in-3 people didn’t have a dedicated workspace. If you tried to work from the couch, your favorite chair, or your bed, you may have found productivity hard to come by. Once it was clear that nobody was going back to the office for a while, most people made a solid effort to dedicate a small part of their living quarters into a makeshift office. If you are like millions of other people that had to work from home or are still working from home, having a PC was critical to getting your work done; but, if you don’t have a lot of room, a laptop is perfect. Not only can you take it with you, but many laptops are more powerful than the typical workstation that your company would give you. 

Smartphone

For a sudden shift to telework, no piece of technology has been as imperative as the smartphone. At first, many businesses were just trying to figure out if they could run their operations remotely. The mobility offered by smartphones largely made the shift possible. Not only could the smartphone be used as a business phone (via a VoIP platform and its softphone app), it can be great for collaboration. Most modern smartphones can be configured with work profiles, which provides a dedicated app drawer for all your business apps. This not only permits the company to manage their data better, it also is beneficial for users who can turn access to work on and off with a tap of their finger. 

Collaboration Apps

Software is essential for almost every business, but for the business relying on remote workers, it is quite literally a business’ saving grace. With a remote staff, collaboration becomes even more critical and software of all kinds are adding in cooperative options. Productivity software like Microsoft 365 or Google’s G Suite have collaborative options baked right in; management software like Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), or Professional Services Automation (PSA) provides end-to-end operations management, supply chain management, and support options; and, collaboration platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams provide communication options and software integrations to keep teams on-point.

COVID-19 has put constraints on businesses, but if you can have the right tools, you can still get your job done. If you would like to talk to one of our expert technicians about getting the right technology to keep your business profitable while the new normal forms, call Macro Systems today at 703-359-9211.