Many companies from Chicagoland to Tampa have employees working from home for the first time. The pandemic forced a majority of businesses to close their physical building and have employees work remotely.
Before the pandemic, 24% of the U.S. workforce was working from home between 3-5 days per week. After the pandemic began, that number more than doubled to 53%. And it looks like telecommuting is here to stay.
Companies have realized that they save money with remote employees, and the employees save money too. When you don’t need to house a workforce in your building, there are savings on utilities, space needs, and in many other areas.
67% of businesses expect their remote working policies to stay in place permanently.
Many businesses have completely adjusted their network infrastructure and digital workflows to accommodate employees working remotely, and it’s been a bit of a learning curve. Some of the new considerations with work-from-home employees include:
- What should we do about home Wi-Fi security?
- Should we mandate which cloud tools they can or cannot use?
- What type of device management is needed?
- How do we handle access security for our new cloud accounts?
One of the mistakes that some business owners make when transitioning to a remote workforce is to leave computer management to the employee. They drop managed IT support or don’t think it needs to be in place when all PCs aren’t located in the same place.
But device management is even more vital when the computer your employee is using to create, access, and store your business data is not at your office. When you can’t physically examine a device each day or when an employee can’t tap a coworker on the shoulder for software help, remotely managed IT services becomes crucial to both cybersecurity and productivity.
How Managed IT Support Benefits a Remote Workforce
Keeps Remote Teams Secure
One of the big targets of hackers during the pandemic has been employees that are now working from home. They are “low hanging fruit” as far as network security goes because many companies have not properly adjusted their security strategy from an in-office to a remote team approach.
Managed IT support provides multiple safeguards to your employee devices to ensure company data is secured from malware and other online threats. You can’t just assume employees are going to secure their own devices in the same way, and through managed support, you don’t need to worry about it.
Each employee device has consistent security whether it’s being used in-office or at home. At ExcalTech®, managed support for your team includes:
- 24×7 service monitoring for any issues
- Updates and patches installed promptly
- Antivirus & anti-malware software
- Web filtering to block malicious websites
- Spam/phishing email filtering
Fosters Remote Team Productivity
While statistics show that remote employees have higher productivity, that productivity is dependent upon them getting the support they need. If someone working remotely has no tech support to call when they have a problem with Microsoft 365, a video conferencing software or their PC, they can end up losing several hours of work time struggling with an issue.
Our managed services include support for Microsoft Office 365 and other third-party applications. So, instead of employees wasting time and getting frustrated when trying to do their work, they have a “software guru” they can call to get immediate help with an issue.
This facet of managed IT support fosters productive remote teams that can truly excel and increase the overall productivity of a company.
You Know Maintenance Tasks Are Handled
If you have a fleet of company vehicles, it’s a safe bet that you wouldn’t just expect the employees that drove them to keep the oil changed and have them maintained regularly. You would want to do that yourself to ensure your investment stayed in good working order and lasted as long as possible.
The same should be true for the computers needed to run your business. They’re a foundational element of how work is getting done and need to be maintained regularly so they can operate at peak efficiency and last a long time.
You can’t rely on every remote employee knowing how to properly dust or maintain a computer or know the things that need to be checked so they can be repaired before they wear out. Additionally, there are multiple internal “housekeeping” items a PC needs to keep it from slowing down and becoming problematic.
A managed IT support plan ensures that all business computers (no matter where they are located) are kept in top condition and maintained regularly. They’re also monitored remotely for PC health and any signs of potential problems.
Is Your Remote Team Fully Supported?
ExcelTech can help your Chicago or Tampa area business do remote teams right! Through our customized managed support plans, we can improve security, productivity, and more.
Schedule a consultation today by calling: 847-842-9570 (IL), 727-437-0020 (FL), or contacting us online.
