Establishing A Post COVID Remote Work Setting For Your Business
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, organizations across the country and around the world had to quickly adapt their operations to continue remotely. Here’s how Grey & Grey, LLP managed their switch to remote work.
COVID Series Episode 2: How Did Grey & Grey LLP Pivot To Remote Work?
We’re now more than three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s fair to assume you’ve established a routine for your remote work processes. And while you and your staff may be comfortable with the current work setting, that’s not to say it can’t be improved.
Get additional insight into tested and proven remote work processes explored in the second episode of our COVID series, featuring Robert Grey of Grey & Grey, LLP:
Grey & Grey worked quickly and started early to mitigate the business and health risks posed by the pandemic:
Protecting Staff And Clients: The first priority was making sure that everyone operating onsite (prior to shelter in place orders) were safe in doing so. By mid-February, Grey & Grey had stocked up on necessary supplies such as masks, gloves and sanitizer.“My general philosophy is, ‘If it doesn’t go bad, buy more of it’,” says Robert Grey.
Communication Capabilities: Before they even had to send staff home, Grey & Grey had had the foresight to order a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system, which would allow remote workers to make and receive business calls from home. Unfortunately, it had not yet arrived when they sent their staff home.Instead, over the course of a weekend, they configured their in-office phone systems to send incoming voicemails as emails to their staff at home. This at least allowed their remote staff to continue following up with clients and other contacts that were calling the office. By the next week, their VoIP solution had been installed, allowing them to make and receive calls directly from their home offices.“I would say for the first week of the shutdown we were probably 75% operational, with everyone working remotely, and by the second week, we were 100% operational,” says Grey.
Virtual vs. Local Roles: Not many businesses can operate entirely virtually - as Grey & Grey determined, you need someone in the office to handle mail, maintenance, and other tasks that cannot be performed remotely.“We’ve generally been operating for three months now with 95% of our people working virtually, and 2 people working physically in the office to keep the operations running,” says Grey. “What enables other people to work virtually is that you have a few people working locally.”
Weighing The Benefits of Remote Work For Future Operations: As states and cities look to reopen, it’s important for businesses to consider the value of remote work, and whether they will continue with it once it’s no longer necessary. Doing so could mean saving money on office space, eliminating the commute from workdays, and other benefits - however, as Grey has found, not everyone prefers the remote work life.“There are definitely advantages to having people work remotely, but what I found a little surprisingly early on is that a very significant percentage of our staff does not want to work from home,” says Grey. “There has been a tremendous push from our staff that they would far prefer to be working in the office to be working from home.”
Don’t worry if you’re not sure how to deal with the challenges of remote work - you’re not on your own. The LI Tech Advisors team is available to assist businesses like yours in optimizing remote work capabilities.
Anthony has been in the MSP business since before the acronym existed. Managed IT once started as break-fix solutions and some light phone support.
Since then, he has seen the industry flourish into a landscape of platforms, cloud servers, software tools and AI . Tailoring network configurations and software stacks to the specific needs of each business.
In his current role, he focuses on proactive planning, ensuring clients can avoid potential issues altogether. This involves meticulous planning for enhanced business continuity, allowing swift resolution of any unforeseen challenges. What initially began as addressing "fires" through break-fix solutions has evolved into a proactive approach, ensuring that such issues are prevented from arising in the first place.
