Riverbank It management

The January snow meant that many people were working from home. Some fared better than others, and the calls to our help desk revealed where employers and employees were struggling. Here are Riverbank’s top tips for keeping your business running when the unexpected happens.

1.    Top of the list by far is preparation. Have a plan and rehearse it. Then you know how you will do it. Waiting until you are cut off by a foot of snow is not a good way to discover the flaw in your plan.
2.    In at number 2 is to make sure you have good instructions. If working from home is something you won’t be doing very often you will need written instructions. Don’t wait until you can’t log on to ask for instructions.
3.    Third on the list is that you need an understanding of the technology. Working from home means that you will probably have a relatively slow link to the office network and one that could get disconnected. You need to work accordingly; keeping a file open for hours while you work on it without saving your changes is a recipe for disaster.
4.    Coming in at numbers four and five is capacity. If you usually have two or three people working remotely how will your broadband line perform when 20 or 30 people are trying to work remotely?

 
5.    The second part of capacity is the capacity of your equipment. Will it support all the additional users? Might you need some additional licences? Will you allow a free-for-all or should you designate the key people who must have good remote access?
6.    Know how your team will communicate with each other. We use Instant Messaging (Microsoft Office Communicator) to keep in touch with each other. Just being able to ping quick messages to and fro really helps to keep everyone together. If it works for us we’re sure it would work for you.
7.    Using home computers. Home computers are a no-no. You don’t know what anti-virus protection they have, you don’t know what teenage children might have downloaded on to them and then you expect your employees to connect them to your office network. Just don’t do it. Keep home computers well away from your network. Equip key people with laptop computers that they can use in the office and at home.
8.    Home ADSL. Home ADSL connections are a common source of frustration. Instead of a business-quality ADSL connection your business is suddenly dependent on a home ADSL service. You are competing with all the children at home and your service sags, making your work difficult or impossible to do. If there is a fault, you could spend an hour on hold waiting for customer service.  Be prepared and make sure that key people have business-quality broadband at home.
9.    Work out what you really need to keep your business functioning. One client mentioned that they had their BlackBerry so they could keep up with e-mails. That was all they really needed for the few days they were not able to get to the office.  
10.    To top off the list it’s planning, planning, planning. If you have a plan you have a fighting chance of success – remember the 6 Ps. If you think laterally you might also be able to get additional benefits from this planning. For example, if staff can work effectively from home they can be more productive if family members are ill or when they are forced to be at home to wait for the washing machine repair person. Instant messaging could help you keep in touch with your team every day, wherever they are.

We will be running an event on business continuity planning in the spring. Contact malcolm@riverbank.co.uk if you would like to receive an invitation.