The Michigan IT Experts

Access a Shortcut Cheat Sheet

If there is one shortcut you walk away from this blog with, we want it to be this one. To pull up a keyboard shortcut list, all you have to do is press the ? key with no conversation selected. It will bring up a list for you to reference.

Quickly Switch Your Lines of Communication

If you want to hop around the interface without taking your hands off the keyboard, you can use this keyboard shortcut. Jump from one space or conversation to the next by pressing Ctrl + K. This will open a box, providing you with options to start a group conversation, browse or create a new space, review message requests, or start a dialogue with one of your existing contacts.

Edit a Sent Message

If you send a message a little too soon, you can make a change to it after the fact by selecting the up arrow on your message. Once the message is selected, you can make any necessary edits, then update the message.

Google Chats is a wonderful tool, so make sure you get the most out of it! NuTech Services can help you take full advantage of your technology solutions. To learn more, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

Engagement is More Than Production

First, you need to understand that remote employees often do better work much faster while they are in the comfort of their own homes. It’s simply a fact that people take less time to do the same tasks they would do in the office while working remotely, and since they don’t need to consider other variables that they normally would when leaving the house, they can get right to work.

It’s also important, however, to acknowledge that there might be more distractions in the home environment compared to the workplace. While it might seem they are a little less productive, we recommend sticking to the key performance indicators as a clear metric for how productive they truly are.

To shed some more light on this sticky situation, here are three factors that you can use to ensure that your employees are engaged with their work, and therefore, productive throughout the workday.

You Still Need Culture

Your company culture is much more than the incentives you offer; it’s also how you treat your employees. A remote team might feel like they are pushed aside or lurking along the sidelines rather than being a part of the team, so you need to do what you can to engage them and work toward that sense of belonging. Shared goals and interests can connect people and encourage them to work better together.

One way you can engage your remote team is to use your collaboration tool for a little bit of fun, like adding a “just for fun” channel where the team can communicate, share stories, memes, jokes, and so on. You could also set up an optional meetup for your team to just hang out in a virtual space to talk about whatever happens to be on their minds. Basically, the idea is to normalize the idea of working from home so that they don’t feel so disconnected from what’s going on in the office.

Get the Right Tools

All that said, none of this is possible without the right kind of collaboration software. There are plenty of solutions on the market that utilize different technologies to promote an inclusive work environment. From collaboration software to video conferencing, or even just a simple instant messaging platform, you might be surprised to see just how much of a difference it can make.

Provide Emotional Feedback and Support

Believe it or not, working from home can add quite a lot of stress and pressure to workers. Some simply handle it better than others. Keeping your communications organized and efficient can be a major way to take some of the stress out of their day-to-day responsibilities. You want your employees to know that they are people, not just a square in a Zoom meeting or a number on the other end of a VoIP channel. Maintaining regular communication and offering timely, constructive feedback is incredibly helpful to ensure that your employees stay engaged, productive, and happy.

It’s not always easy to manage a group of remote employees, but with the right tools and practices, you can take a lot of the challenge out of it. To learn more about how you can do so, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

First, a quick look at the statistics is in order:

• The global cost of cybercrime is a staggering $6 trillion.
• On average, it takes over half a year to detect a data breach.
• 91 percent of attacks start with a phishing email.
• Businesses faced an average of 22 security breaches in 2020.

$6 trillion makes cybercrime the world’s third-largest economy, which is a little jarring to say the least. Evidence suggests that four percent of the U.S. GDP is swiped by those involved in cybercrime. This is a total of billions of dollars, all stolen by hackers and scammers every year. These numbers are for the United States alone; imagine what is being done on a global scale.

As far as the news is concerned, you would think that data breaches are so high-profile that they are identified easily, but this is simply not the case. The average time to detection, according to IBM, is around 287 days. In data-intensive industries like healthcare and financial services, this number is even larger. IBM provides a timeline for containment as well, a number that sits at around 80 days.

Social engineering attacks were far from the norm in computer-based attacks, but hackers have continued to utilize these attacks to best even the smartest of network security professionals and solutions. Phishing attacks are the primary example of this; it might not be easy to crack a password, but it might be easier to do so if the user whose password you’re trying to steal willingly gives it away because they don’t know any better. This is why phishing has become front-and-center in the cybercrime field.

No business is too small to become the target of a cyberattack, and you should always be prepared to deal with the worst-case scenario, no matter how unlikely it might be. The average business deals with 22 security breaches each year, and you can rest assured that if you fail to protect your business, it will suffer as a result.

Network security can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. We aim to make understanding its intricacies easier and to take the burden off of small businesses. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.