Your Workforce is Working at Home. What Now?

Organizations around the world are grappling with exactly how to slow the spread of COVID-19. As they implement stringent measures designed to combat the virus and protect citizens, organizations are likewise taking decisive steps to safeguard employees and their communities, while prioritizing remote workforce productivity to support business continuity. Here’s how we think about it.

People come first. The word “unprecedented” has been used over and over again to define a situation that strains our collective understanding. Companies, governments, and people are united in that we are all carefully navigating new and uncertain terrain. No one alive has been through this. At a company level, asking “How does this put people first?” can serve as a good guidepost on doing right by employees, customers and partners.

Focus on serving your mobile and remote workforce. For organizations that were already adept at serving a mobile and modern workforce, this is the chance to outline best practices for your teams and serve as an example for others. Share what business applications your teams rely on – and how you weather variable network connectivity to keep them up and running. For organizations that haven’t yet fully embraced a distributed remote model, this is the time to step up and enable your workforce with the technology, tips and tools they need to be productive. Make sure to listen to the challenges they’re encountering and be as responsive as you can.

Performance is paramount. Collaboration tools have gone from useful to non-negotiable in short order. Everyone has to use them. IT organizations in companies large and small universally recognize that at-home and business networks will be under tremendous strain at a time when performance of apps like these and other tools is more important than ever. Companies will have to keep employees well connected to corporate networks, the cloud, and business-critical SaaS applications.

Beyond the focus on IT performance to ensure productivity, every company has to identify fresh markers of performance. In this new paradigm, plans and projects are being reshaped, reimagined, or sometimes scrapped entirely. It will take time but we all must laser in on what’s critical and communicate those priorities effectively to employees.

Visibility is vital. Companies need to be able to take real-time stock of network and application performance. This is more than just anecdotal evidence – although calls and emails to internal customer service channels are important signals worth elevating. This means reviewing the technology tools in place that provide that performance visibility.

Are you able to quickly diagnose and fix network issues? That’s important when surges arising from sudden demand are common. Can you easily optimize experience and workforce productivity regardless of location? That is also essential as companies attempt to deliver consistent, reliable uptime to workers.

For more insight, check out our work from home webinar with tips and demos on boosting at-home network performance.

What’s on your mind as you consider how best to support your workers at home?