Over the past 3 weeks since our team at ICT Solutions moved completely to remote work we are discovering and experiencing first-hand what it really means to be home with our families and working hard to stay productive and connected to our work colleagues.
Over the past 2 years we have upped our game considerably around Business Continuity, primarily driven by the ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 programs, whilst the regular internal and external audits have kept us all on our toes. So, when on the 11th of March, the Covid Situation Team agreed to invoke the Business Continuity plan, this was the moment of truth.
Our experience has been a very positive one, and, bar some minor hiccups, we had the team of 50 up and running from home by the next morning. By the end of the first day it was great to see team members sharing pictures of their home setup, feeling proud of being an integral part of this change and fully committed to making this work.
”We had the team of 50 up and running from home by the next morning.
Using Microsoft Teams as our main collaboration platform, coupled with a secure remote working infrastructure setup, we adopted quickly to the new normal way of doing business. The team was enabled with secure remote access to all our tools and systems, having the same experience as working from the office.
Joining an online Microsoft Teams meeting quickly replaced walking into a meeting room at the office or heading out to meet a customer.
Every last Friday of the month we have our company wide update meeting and we were adamant to go ahead with this. We organised a Microsoft Teams Live Event for this and the feedback from the team was very encouraging and positive.
Up to a couple of weeks ago none of us would have thought that running our regular one-to-one meetings, delivering technical workshops to clients, running classroom training and conducting new employee interviews can be done remotely without impacting the end result.
This change not only allowed us to carry on seamlessly with our business, but more importantly allowed us to minimise the risk of our teams getting sick, as well as giving them the flexibility to manage their family situations at home.
It is clear that this global pandemic will see a paradigm shift in the way businesses will operate in the near future. Our experience is that, if you do this right, and with the required level of security and robustness, there will be a lot of benefits to come to the business as well as to the teams themselves. When all this is over, we are certain we will adopt some of the working practices we are developing during these weeks.
At ICT Solutions we are driven by enabling our customers to succeed through technology adoption. In such challenging times more than ever, technology will continue to open up new opportunities and be the differentiator between the traditional way of running a business and this new reality.
Feel free to get in touch with our team who will discuss how we can use our first-hand experience to help your business work remotely in a secure manner.