Setting Up for Remote Work Amid a Health Crisis

By the Experts at MyOutDesk

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic spreads, is your business equipped to respond to all urgent concerns? As a business owner, you have to think about the trigger points in your business so that you can make a quick and informed decision to adapt your systems and processes. Remote work is an effective preventative measure that will immediately decrease risks to community health and safety, as well as help keep businesses afloat.

At MyOutDesk, we've discussed many of the advantages of remote work for years now. Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft are among many of the nation's big tech companies that have embraced the virtual workplace for years, and right now, they're asking their employees to work from home. For smaller businesses, this may not be such an easy task, but by putting the framework in place for a virtual workplace, you're setting the stage for not only increased safety, but also increased efficiency and lower business overhead.

Working remotely is easier for some jobs than for others. If you're actively selling as a real estate agent, some amount of face time and physical presence at listings and open houses will be required. However, even for these kinds of jobs, you can leverage tools like teleconferencing to reduce exposure and time in public—and, offering your clients a virtual solution could become a powerful selling point for your services.

We are offering you a free guide to set up your employees for remote work. For business owners who want to make the switch the right way and stay productive, this guide includes three easy steps to get started. Our Fast Guide is an excellent resource to turn to when setting up your team to work effectively from home immediately by helping you:

• Identify all considerations in a disaster scenario
• Prevent productivity loss
• Focus on eliminating potential financial impact
• Maintain high-quality customer service
• Perform your civic duty

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend businesses actively encourage employees to stay home and, when at work, to practice good hand hygiene and coughing and sneezing etiquette.

Additional Employer Steps You Can Take

Here are some crucial additional actions that you can take to increase the health and safety of your staff:

• Suspend nonessential employee travel.
• Minimize the number of employees working within arm's length of one another, including minimizing or canceling large in-person meetings and conferences.
• Urge employees to stay home when they are sick and maximize flexibility in sick leave benefits.
• Eliminate the requirement for a doctor's note for employees that are sick, as healthcare offices may be very busy and unable to provide that documentation right away.
• Use telecommuting options for appropriate employees.
• Consider staggering start and end times to reduce large numbers of people coming together at the same time.

Lasting Benefits of Remote Work

In response to the health crisis, the uptick in remote work may be temporary, but the truth is that remote work is a stable trend. Businesses are moving away from traditional offices to a blended remote and physical organization.

Ready to Go Remote? We Can Help!

We have 12 years of expertise working with thousands of clients and remote employees in a virtual environment. Nobody knows remote work like we do, and we're here to answer your questions—including whether the time is right to hire a virtual assistant.

Virtual assistants work remotely all the time, and have the tools, training and experience in how to run an office remotely—and, of course, there's a cost savings to consider compared to traditional staffing as well. MyOutDesk Virtual Professionals are most optimally positioned to work remotely from their homes. We encourage businesses to take advantage of and utilize the telework tools and systems that are already in place with MyOutDesk Virtual Professionals for expanding remote work for all employees.

Make MyOutDesk your virtual solutions consultant of choice. Schedule a free consultation with us now and we'll help you structure a complete virtual and remote workplace solution for your team.