The Ultimate Guide to Office Relocation – 6 -Working from Home

Considering Remote Workers in Your Office Move & Beyond

Having covered Moving Out and Moving In to a New Office, we’re turning our focus onto your employees, particularly the remote workers.

When moving offices, it may seem that there is minimal impact if your team are working remotely. However, it is essential to maintain good communication, employee relationships and motivation when change is in progress.

In this article, we look at the technology that supports remote working, employee safety, business security and keeping everyone informed.

Working from Home

It may be commonplace for your team members to work from home. In fact, flexible working arrangements may be the reason that you are downsizing.

Equally, remote working may seem like an ideal temporary measure to minimise disruption during an office move. With the right equipment and support, it can be an effective way to maintain operations.

However, out of sight is not out of mind. No matter where your team are working from, you, as their employer have responsibilities.

Complying with Health & Safety

As an employer, you have responsibility for employee health and safety, even when they work remotely.

A common example is ensuring compliance with The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations. These apply to workers who use display screen equipment (DSE) for continuous periods of an hour or more when:

• Working at home on a permanent or long-term basis
• Routinely split their time between their workplace and home –  hybrid workers

Check if the DSE regulations apply to your workers.

DSE risk assessment

Where the regulations apply, a DSE assessment for each worker must be carried out. A self-assessment can be undertaken by the employee especially if you have explained how to use an ergonomic checklist or self-assessment tool.

DSE Assessment

A good workplace setup and posture will minimise the risk of injury, so share this advice from the Health & Safety Executive with your employees.

Good Posture Advice

Suitable Work Space

When considering home working, it’s important to recognise that not all employees will have a suitable working space at home. Some find it difficult to avoid distractions, others feel it’s hard to draw the line between work and free time. Therefore, it is good to offer the option of working from a local business hub. Explore the options and costs of renting a desk in your area for team members who prefer this option.

Effectively Managing Remote Workers

Maintaining regular communication

To keep everyone onboard and involved in the process you need to maintain open and informative communication. You can’t let your team feel forgotten and in a period of change, concerns will likely be heightened.

You might feel consumed with managing the move, but you need to find time to check in with employees and be available to answer questions they may have. Equally encourage team communication, so everyone feels they have a strong network of support.

Encourage team interaction

Team interaction can be a challenge with a team of remote workers. In an office, employees benefit from dynamic engagement, discussions and support. Escalation of issues can be very fluid to ensure prompt resolution and many individuals thrive on social interaction. Without the right technology and company culture, this can easily be lost when remote working.

Equipment, Workspace & Internet Backup

Any remote working team needs adequate equipment to stay productive. Internet connection may be tested to its full, so ideally, everyone will have a 4G backup in place.

If remote working is or will be a regular occurrence for employees, the best solution is to use cloud-based technology. This ensures every team member can log in for access to files and to keep track of work in progress.

With a phone system hosted in the cloud, the mainline is automatically routed to the team. All of this is available to everyone from home or indeed any location with an internet connection.

 The Benefit of Office 365

If you think that remote working may become a long-term option for employees, we’d strongly recommend Office 365. This offers a range of facilities that help employees work more effectively from home.

Microsoft Office 365 is so much more than the office applications of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, SharePoint, OneNote etc. It is a productivity tool that operates as a hub for all your teamwork activities.

It allows employees to:

• Store and share files securely
• Work together on documents
• Host, join & manage meetings
• Chat with colleagues
• Use voice or video conferencing
• Have fully shared Outlook calendar integration
• Join customer calls
• Connect with others in their workgroup
• Manage projects and other work 
• Use a variety of applications

All of this is available on desktops, laptops, browser apps and mobile devices.

Your team can manage projects, resources and activities in one central place, which can be far more efficient than other working methods. It simply makes it easier to communicate with your co-workers and managers. 

Other useful remote working tools

Fortunately, there are now many tools and services available to help employees perform their roles effectively from home. Here are some of the ICT considerations that enable staff to work more flexibly.

Flexible VoIP phone systems that can be set up in days. These systems allow calls to be made and taken on mobiles, laptops as well as desk phones. This enables the main lines for enquiries and sales to be redirected in multiple ways.

 Fluid messaging and shared calendars on mobile devices using Outlook Messaging and Calendar so that everyone can check team availability and book virtual and other meetings. 

Secure shared files so that documents can be worked on by whoever needs access, allowing simultaneous editing, even on mobile devices. This reduces the risk of a data security breach and limits the employer’s exposure to the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). 

New and replacement laptops can be deployed if staff and managers don’t have laptops to take home. Be aware that security is a serious risk if home computers are being used. This is because they may not have adequate malware and anti-virus protection. It should be noted that employees may fail to back up information stored on home PCs and laptops.

Using cloud-based systems and software for your MIS, accounts and other special business applications is a great way to add resilience and flexible working. We offer hosted services in the most secure data centre environments.

Secure cloud backup with encryption to make sure all company information can be restored by using managed retention policies that line up with business needs.

Business continuity and disaster recovery solutions to keep businesses operating in worst-case events.

Temporary or Permanent?

New flexible working laws mean that employees have the right to request flexible working options. This includes working remotely. While this isn’t possible for all employees, with the right tools in place, it becomes viable for many. A benefit to the business is that you can attract talent from further afield.

So, when moving office to better suit your business needs, is it also a good time to bring your technology up to speed?

If you are planning an office move and would like a copy of the complete Office Relocation series, or need support with handling the IT infrastructure we can assist. Contact us today to find out more.