Many organisations are experiencing a change in work practice due to Covid-19, with most being advised to work from home. While some businesses have already adjusted to remote work, several find making the transition challenging. In this post, we will discuss the essentials for making the shift as seamless as possible and some tools to help you stay more productive than ever.
Cloud is key
Firstly, your staff must know how to securely connect to your business infrastructure via remote access. There are several main players in this area, all of which we're sure you've heard of:
- Microsoft Office 365
- Google Cloud Services
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Microsoft Azure
To keep things simple, we will discuss Microsoft's Azure and its many benefits for working from home. Or work from anywhere, for that matter. Having a Microsoft Azure account means your team can work when they are on the go from their laptop, tablet or even phone. Azure is a cloud-computing platform that offers the infrastructure and storage for your business that can either be used to replace or supplement your on-premise servers.
Productivity & communication
Microsoft Azure comes with Office 365, giving your team access to the Microsoft Office suite of products, including email/Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Calendar sharing. This enables your team to work, collaborate and save projects in the cloud, no matter where they are located.
Collaboration
Microsoft Teams is an excellent collaboration tool for your team to work on projects together. From within Teams, you can create projects, groups, and tasks. Furthermore, you can assign tasks to certain team members, update and track the progress of a task, and chat within the group involved with a project. Moreover, documentation and media can be uploaded within the Teams App.
Communication
Microsoft Teams allows for phone and video conferencing calls for meetings and to discuss projects. If you really want to get fancy, you can even screen share with the rest of your team to demonstrate, present or share ideas on your screen.
Microsoft SharePoint is a Document Management and Storage Subsystem. It allows you to share and manage content and enables your team to quickly find the information they are looking for, and seamlessly collaborate remotely across your organisation.
Fortunately, technology allows organisations to work, communicate and collaborate remotely nowadays, which is especially important in the current Covid-19 climate. If you or your organisation require any assistance, or simply have any questions regarding making the shift to working from a home office, feel free to reach out to us anytime or connect on Facebook or LinkedIn.