The Michigan IT Experts

As more and more people are dealing with the virus and its effects on commerce, supply chains are failing and distribution patterns are completely disrupted. This has had a devastating effect on the world economy. It isn’t like a hurricane or a flood, but an outbreak, like most other disasters, hit business’ suddenly and has led many to enact their disaster recovery strategies. Today, we are going to discuss how IT fits into disaster recovery. 

At first, people didn’t pay much mind to Coronavirus. They went on with their business as normal, not realizing that this virus wasn’t like most other viruses. Most of the viruses that you could be exposed to have a vaccine. It didn’t take long before the world around us started to shut down and, with it, came regulations on how your business needs to function. What was looked on as kind of a joke three weeks ago, is now one of the deadliest disasters the world has seen in decades. 

Chances are that your business has been directly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and those that have a disaster recovery strategy have had to enact parts of it. How is your business prepared for situations like this? One thing is for sure, if your business didn’t plan for a situation where your workers can work remotely, you are likely feeling the sting much more than if you were prepared. Sure, you don’t have to like the idea of having a remote workforce, but the truth is that any business that can support remote workers, needs to have a contingency for situations like this. 

Ensuring that your business can pivot to it makes a huge difference; and, it doesn’t have to be for when the whole world shuts down around you. If you live in a place that gets a lot of snow, you may want to enact your remote work policy to keep people out of harm’s way. Sometimes you may need your team to work more to get an important project out. Allowing them to work from home keeps them from spending longer-than-normal time at the office, and makes it a lot easier to help them handle the other issues in their life.

If your business needs help through this very trying time, call the IT professionals at NuTech Services at 810-230-9455. We can take you through the options you have right now and take you through our strategy of disaster recovery to ensure when you need to mobilize your remote workforce, that you are able to on demand.

Set Some Boundaries

Establish a Workspace

One of the first things that you should do when adopting a remote work approach is to give yourself guidelines. It can be immensely helpful to establish a set place to do your work, and equip it appropriately with minimal distractions. As a general rule, it is best if this area is not in the bedroom, or any area in your living space that you typically spend your recreational time. This will help you to keep up your focus throughout the day.

Don’t Overwork

You also need to set some boundaries as far as work time is concerned. While many employers are concerned about their remote employees goofing off and slacking, the opposite is just as common--employees trying to get as much done as possible and overexerting themselves. Make sure you don’t slip into the “just five more minutes” habit and step away when it is time to do so.

Make Sure You’re Dressing as You Dress Down

Finally, there’s the question of how casual you can be while working from home. While pajamas are overwhelmingly frowned upon in the vast majority of offices, there is nothing stopping you from foregoing the shower and working in your bathrobe. While there is nothing wrong with dressing down a little if you’re working from home, you will undoubtedly feel and perform better if you clean yourself up before getting down to business.

Encourage Co-working

Set the Standard

Collaboration is always critical for a business’ success, but it takes on a particular importance when the workforce is working remotely. Therefore, you need to encourage the liberal use of communication in order to keep your team on the same page, and lead by example. Show them the kind of communications you are expecting them to engage in by actively participating in them.

Use Your Available Tools

Modern business solutions are overwhelmingly designed with collaboration in mind, so don’t be shy about encouraging your team to use them, especially as you are leading by example with your communications. Demonstrate when it is best to use instant messaging or email to communicate by using them to keep your team accountable to the business and to each other.

Do Some Proactive Networking

In the same vein as setting the standard, don’t be afraid to take the first step and reach out to the people you’re working with for some non-work-related conversation (within reason, of course). Getting to know everyone on the team, even the ones you don’t work with directly, will help to make the workplace a more collaborative one.

Commit to Working Productively

Customize Your Schedule

In some cases, the benefit in working remotely comes from the fact that the workday isn’t necessarily constrained to the traditional 9-to-5 agenda. If this applies to the tasks typical of your office, encourage your employees to figure out the times that they are able to work most effectively, and allow them to shift their schedules to match. Depending on their circumstances, not every day would necessarily have the same schedule… but if the work gets done, what difference does it make?

Block Out Distractions

FInally, we do have to acknowledge the elephant in the room: the temptation to procrastinate can be strong when an employee is out of the office. While recreational activities should obviously wait until you and your team is done working for the day, it is important to remember that there’s more than one way to waste time. Some people will postpone their tasks by doing “other” important things, like tidying up their house. Resist spending the time you need to commit to work by doing other things. If you really can’t help but procrastinate, find some way to do so in a way that will ultimately help you focus… whether that’s journaling briefly or taking a few moments to quietly meditate.

Of course, in order to put these tips into action, your team needs the tools necessary to work remotely. NuTech Services can help with that, as well as your other IT needs. To learn more, reach out to us at 810-230-9455.

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly thrown us all for a loop, with many businesses wisely choosing to close their office doors, either scaling back their operations or choosing to utilize a more mobile workforce. While this clearly qualifies as a disaster, it isn’t one that holds too many risks against your data; at least, not when compared to some others. This gives us a chance to consider how well-prepared we are for other disasters that could pose more of a threat to the information and files your operations depend on. For instance, how would you respond if something were to happen to your actual business infrastructure (and, by association, any data you had stored there)?

The standards accepted as best practice today say that the smart move is to preserve at least one copy of your data in an offsite location. That way, if something were to happen to your in-house servers, you know that there’s another copy safely stored away. If you have a BDR set up, this can then act as your temporary server to enable your team’s continued productivity (even while working remotely) until the servers can be replaced.

So while the timing of World Backup Day isn’t the best this year, its lessons remain just as important:

• The 3-2-1 Backup Method - Using the 3-2-1 method means that you keep at least three copies of your data. Two copies can be stored onsite, while one is kept in an offsite data center or other cloud storage option.
• Backup Your Backup - You will want to check all of your backups (and then check again) to ensure they were taken successfully. There are several reasons a backup could fail, so you should never assume they are working. Check them, double-check them, and then check them again after that. If you ever need your backup, you’ll be glad you made sure. 
• Protect Your Backup - All devices that contain your data need password protection at the very least, with added multi-factor authentication for extra benefit, including your backups. You should also protect your backup’s storage solution with an up-to-date antivirus/antimalware protocol.

For help in setting up your business with the protection that a data backup brings, with the added disaster recovery benefits you will need, reach out to us at 810-230-9455 today.