Working Remotely Checklist for Emergencies

With the spread of the Coronavirus (or Covid-19), it may become more evident that most businesses may force their employees to work from home as part of voluntary and mandated quarantines. For those businesses that are not already working remotely, here are some items to consider.

Make Sure Your Employees Are Prepared: Check with your employees to make sure they have the ability at home to successfully work from home.

• Do they have a good enough and stable internet connection?
  
• If you are not providing them with one, do they have a good laptop or computer they can use from home?
  
• If they do not have a company-owned laptop or an up to date computer at home, you should consider purchasing or prepping some computers for your employees to use. 
  
• Does your employee know how to access all of your company's applications and data remotely?
  
• If you have an inhouse server, do your employees have a secure way to access it via a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and or secure remote desktop connection? 
  
• Do your employees have a home office they can use or a designated space they can use to work from?
  
• Is there any compliance or other company policies they need to adhere to? 
  
• Do your employees have the right security in place on any of there personal computers when accessing your corporate data? 
  
• Are your employees able to access email on their personal phones if you are not providing them with one? 
  
• Do your employees have any of your company applications mobile apps installed on their phones? 
  
• Do you have a way to manage your employee's access to corporate data on their personal phones or company-provided phones? 
  

Do you have the right IT infrastructure in place? 

• If you have a server in house, do each of your users have the ability to access it remotely? 
  
• Do you have enough Remote Desktop Client Access Licenses for all of your employees to access the Remote Desktop Server if you have one? 
  
• Do you have enough spare laptops for those employees who will need one? 
  
• Do you have VPN access setup for each of your employees?
  
• Do you have a remote collaboration tool in place like Slack or Microsoft Teams that your employees can use?
  
• Do you have browser access setup for all of your cloud-based applications if available? 
  
• Does your phone system have the ability to forward calls to employees' cell phones or does it have a mobile app that your employees can install on there personal or company-provided phones?
  
• Do you have a voice system, collaboration tool like Zoom or Teams to do video meetings with your staff that normally would take place in person? 
  
• Does your office have enough internet bandwidth to handle all of your employees accessing your internal systems? 
  

Expectations

• If your company is used to working within an office environment, set the expectations for communication? Do you want your staff to provide daily updates via email, conference calls or chat? 
  
• Plan for contingencies for those jobs and tasks that require a physical presence in the office.  
  
• Communicate with your clients if there will be any delays in your service to them because of the change. 
  
• Remind your employees of any remote work policies you have in place. 

These are just a few items to consider to get prepared for your staff working remotely. Please contact us if you have any specific questions you have about this or any other items we missed.