Working From Home – with or without Covid-19

Are you going remote or working from home for the first time? Are you trying to figure out how to coordinate remote teams to seamlessly work together and not lose productivity? The concept of working online via Internet has been around for years, but with Covid-19 this is quickly moving from a small portion of office workers to EVERYONE! We know this is a huge change for many people. We are here to help navigate that.

Practical ways we help our clients to work from home

    • Setup VPN connections, which allow users to connect back to their office or servers to access files, applications, and services that are normally only available within the office.
    • Setting up Remote Desktop Services to allow a screenshare type connection to a server or workstation in your (empty) office. This saves the need to install software on your home computers.
    • Setting up and training on using Office 365 and Microsoft Teams for chat, video, collaboration, and online meetings.
    • Password resets.
    • Migrating data from office file server to Microsoft Sharepoint.
    • Firewall rule changes to support the remote users.
    • Challenges with slow internet, whether on the home internet or the office side.
    • Configuring your office phone system, so that you can receive and place calls from home without using your home phone or mobile phone.
    • Purchasing, configuring, and delivering hardware.
    • Setting up new laptops and workstations for home users.
    • Moving computers from office to home – and ensuring you can still do your job.
    • IT Consulting and Advice, such as how to handle big files and drafting design programs.
    • Dealing with emergency server/network recovery and repairs.

What’s been working for us

We are all in this together. That means we are going through this adaption and learning process as well!

    • Lots more communication, with both clients and team members. Maybe we are even communicating better than before! Some is one-to-many (email blasts, recorded video, blog posts) but also a lot of 1-on-1 conversation, to understand what is on people’s hearts and minds.
    • Being positive, constructive, and empathetic.
    • Tools like Zoom, MS Teams, and Slack. The new video chat feature works great in Slack!
    • Wiki for collaboration, knowledge base, and process documentation. We’ve been using it for over 10 years.
    • Rethinking and reschedule meetings to be more effective. Shorter meetings are saving us time. Specific meetings are helping people to engage better.

Changing focus of IT

    • Remote Work (aka Work From Home), obviously.
    • Cybersecurity: it was important, but now is twice as important!
    • Flexibility and creativity is so much more important now, as the whole economy and working environment is pivoting massively overnight.
    • Increased reliance on tools to build relationships, as we can’t rely on boardrooms, body language, and overhearing conversations. We are all being forced to be highly intentional and disciplined in using technology to support our social needs in the work place.
    • More MS Office 365 / Teams / Sharepoint solutions for easy collaboration/communication.

Other IT areas we can help with

    • IT reviews and assessments of networks and Windows and Linux servers.
    • Helpdesk.
    • Disaster Recovery Planning and Business Continuity.
    • Cloud planning and migration.
    • Proactive Maintenance.
    • Scalability and performance planning.
    • Legacy application support requirements.
    • Database optimization.

Discuss your project with us

To confirm that there is a mutual fit, and that we have the capacity and skill set to timely implement your request, kindly submit the form below. We will reach out either with answers/next steps, or schedule a call to chat and discuss things further. If you have an emergency need, please call us at 604-824-2770.

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