With the UK moving in to the ‘Delay´ phase of its coronavirus response, people looking to work from home, how will you manage your data and systems?
Do you have a crisis management plan in case there is a lot of staff needing to work from home? Fire, Flood, or Global disasters can strike any company. Affinity IT can help you achieve this quickly and easily.
So, we offer these words of advice to start with:
Recovery by Remote Working
Having staff working away from the office is becoming very common. Fortunately, there are lots of great tools to help you set up communications and secure data transfers between the office and your members of staff. Many of them you probably already utilise within your company, so you will be familiar with them.
Communication
Being able to contact the office and maintain contact with clients is crucial. We shall look at how you can achieve that profitably.
Calls
Most people will immediately think of phone calls using a mobile phone. You can make this secure by giving your co-worker a business phone, just for work calls and emails.
Alternatively, you could utilise your 3CX system and add the remote worker to the telephone system, they then receive the calls through their device. All your telephony management stays within your control, along with your recordings.
Meetings
Setting up a meeting is relatively simple, these days we are all used to video-calling. Teams is available in Office 365 packages and is recognised by many. With an integrated whiteboard and the ability to use your Microsoft Teams to transfer and co-work on files in real-time.
Data Storage and Recovery
Storage and safe sharing
Where do you keep your data? If it is on a server, do you have the appropriate back-ups and are they accessible by remote workers should it fail? One easy solution is to store on a cloud and use SharePoint.
With SharePoint, all your staff can communicate and share documents, files, and media safely within the company. If you have specialised back-up needs, then cloud to cloud backups may be the answer.
It is worth covering any IT equipment with insurance while it is away from the office. Do not rely on your workers own home insurance.
Recovery
Recovery from virus, IT failure, or other disasters is vital to keep the business running. Having your back-ups in place will lead to a swift recovery. Replacing hardware is the first step.
Software is the next, then finally reinstating links to your data. Ongoing support from IT specialists will certainly speed things along. Here at Affinity it, we sincerely hope you do not need to use the last paragraphs advice.
We are here to help. If you still have any questions relating to remote working, data storage or recovery, then do not hesitate to pick up the phone and give us a call or let us call you back.
