IT Solutions for Remote Workforces

Companies in the post-pandemic world have quickly embraced remote workforces as the way to move forward. While the shift was abrupt, it did open up new conversations.

According to a Forbes report, 61% of employees consider being fully remote. And it’s not hard to see why. Remote workforces give employees greater freedom to dictate their work hours, resulting in an uptick in productivity and job satisfaction.

But to facilitate a successful remote workforce, employers need to address three factors:

• Rich and real-time communication to offset the lack of physical presence and mutual knowledge
• A secure workforce with software and hardware properly guarded by VPNs, firewalls, and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies
• An emphasis on creating a unified company culture that encourages sharing of ideas, cool-off periods and properly navigating mental health challenges that may arise with remote workforces

Project management solution

According to a Hubstaff survey, 36% of remote workers believe not knowing what and when their colleagues are working on something, creates a challenge. Tools like Teams and Trello are intuitive management tool that compartmentalize tasks and offer real-time communication and outsourced it support services in NY. Asana is another project management tool that has an extensive amount of features and integrations, making it suitable for SMBs looking for an all-in-one solution.

Communication solutions

The same survey also shows that 45% of people think lack of communication is the biggest challenge while working remotely. By focusing on bridging the communication gap, Slack has quickly become a leading communication tool for virtual companies. It lets you create multiple workplaces, channels, and individual threads, search on a granular level, share files, and integrate Google Drive and other apps. Another useful tool for communication is Microsoft Teams. People who are deeply involved in Microsoft’s ecosystem will prefer its integration with Office 365.

Security solutions

Virtual workforces of today are vulnerable to cyberattacks more than ever. Apart from training employees on the best practices to stay safe online, employees must be encouraged to use password managers like 1Password and Dashlane to generate and store strong passwords. Relying on cloud file sharing tools like Google Drive and Dropbox can also mitigate the risk of workflow disruption in case of a cyberattack.

Time management solutions

More than anything, remote workers struggle with the lack of boundaries between office space and home. The balance between work and break can be achieved by keeping track of the events, timeboxing important tasks, establishing and following routines, and being flexible and prepared to move away from the desk to prevent burnout. A time clock app with GPS helps ensure time and attendance accuracy while also protecting employers from time theft. By utilising a time clock app that integrates GPS features, employees can enter start and end times while the company is able to know where an employee was when they clocked in or out. This helps protect the integrity of payroll management processes, as well as profitability since employers will now be able to accurately manage shift work and employee time with clear accountability and positional data. Using a time clock app with GPS capability can help create efficient strategies for improving workforce productivity and communication. Tools like Todoist help in organizing and following day-to-day tasks while Hubstaff enables employers to review tracked time, activity levels, progress reports, and schedules.

IT solutions provider for remote workforces

Remote workforces, in particular, need to leverage IT solutions to iron out the flaws and strengthen their workflow. Hiring a managed IT services provider (MSP) such as MyTek can help companies build a secure and optimized remote workforce and roll out blueprints by using our industry expertise. To know more about how an MSP can provide IT solutions for your remote workforce, contact us.

Expense Management solutions

Expense management tasks can be more challenging when your employees work from different locations. With remote working, not only are your Sales team and travelling employees making expenses but so are almost all your employees. Business expenses can include wifi bills, software subscriptions, cell phone bills, and more. Cloud-based expense management software like Fyle can help take your expense reporting, tracking, and management task online. Employees can upload receipts and submit their expense reports, approvers can review and approve them, and finance teams can ensure the validity of claims and reimburse employees. With the tool, all the activity related to an expense report and the documents can be tracked, viewed, and accessed under one dashboard.