A Note From Our CEO
The health and safety of our employees and clients is our top priority. We have implemented a variety of policies, including replacing business travel and in-person meetings with Teams conferencing and increasing work flexibility for all employees to manage any personal challenges and hardships caused by COVID-19.
We have a geographically dispersed team with technology collaboration tools that support business continuity. While our office is closed, we continue to have a strong remote workforce and our operations are not being impacted.
As the remote workforce grows, many are looking for support to enable flexibility and collaboration within a secure environment. We want to ensure your organization has what it needs, so we gathered some tips, tricks and helpful solutions to support you.
We are here to help as you work to ensure business continuity.
Sincerely,
James Farhat
ACTS CEO
Quickly provision a cloud remote desktop solution and increase remote employee performance from anywhere in the world.
Get your remote employees collaborating in no time with rapid deployment, configuration and end-user training.
Supporting Remote Workers
As you find your organization needing to support remote employees for an indeterminate amount of time, consider the technologies you already own. ACTS will partner with you to evaluate your business needs and support your flexibility with the cloud.
Microsoft Azure and Windows Virtual Desktop
If you have Azure today, you have access to Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) to get started immediately. WVD allows you to increase remote employee performance with low latency from anywhere in the world. WVD works hand-in-hand with Azure AD to provide security without increasing infrastructure complexity.
Through the power of the Azure Cloud, you can virtualize both desktops and apps giving you the ability to scale your desktop demands as needed and avoid hardware limitations. You can gain access to WVD from any device that contains the WVD native client app or a WVD HTML5 web client.
With WVD you can:
- Migrate your windows server remote desktops and apps to Azure simplifying your management and deployment of virtual machines.
- Centrally manage the security of your user’s desktops with a lower IT management overhead.
- Reduce the likelihood of confidential information being left on a personal device because the compute environment is separated from user devices.
Microsoft Teams in Office 365
With 80% of corporate employee’s time spent collaborating, you want to ensure they are set up for success. Whether you already have Office 365 Teams licensing or need to take advantage of Microsoft’s 6-Month Office 365 E1 free trial license, you can get started immediately.
Teams is built with Microsoft’s enterprise-grade security and compliance including auditing, reporting, built in information protection, multi-factor authentication and a single pane of glass administration. Users can share, edit in real time and access the latest files, enabling your remote employees to work efficiently across boundaries. This allows you and your team to stay connected and get work done during impactful events using features like
- Video conferencing
- Screen sharing
- Persistent chat
- Whiteboarding
- Outlook integration
Teams brings all the familiar Office 365 services (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Power BI) together along with other custom applications.
Helpful Tips
As you and your teams consider staying productive while working remotely
, think about how you will take care of yourself – schedule breaks, stay hydrated, and plan when you will step away at the end of the day. In this time of upheaval we’ve shared our top five tips and tricks for adjusting to remote work.
Adjusting Your Culture
Adjusting to working remotely can create anxiety and negatively impact the work culture that our teams have come to depend on. Leaders will need to communicate frequently across all channels to ensure key messages are heard and concerns are mitigated. Consider setting up groups to share best practices as employees are learning to be productive in their new virtual office.
Planning for Consistency
Ensuring all stakeholders are informed of the work being completed is now more important than ever. In the past informal hallway conversations may have sufficed, now you may find the need to institute additional process to ensure effective communication, consistency and quality. With a nearly 100% remote workforce at ACTS we’ve found things like ensuring version controls, defining hand-offs, and creating checklists of common tasks helpful.
People, Process and Technology
At ACTS we connect people with process and technology in order to meet business needs in a more effective and efficient way. Remote work should start with the same foundation. Consider all the resources available to you to get your job done – beyond email and chat, screen sharing, virtual meetings and co-authoring documents are some of the tools in your toolbox as you consider how to work together across boundaries.
Staying Engaged
It is important for all teammates to be engaged when working remotely. There are various ways to drive inclusion in a virtual environment including using the video function, asking for input frequently and sharing your screen. When using remote technologies, ensure audio and small technical issues are handled at the start of the meeting to support an inclusive environment.
Collaboration
Tracking daily actions is often a difficult task when working in a virtual office, it requires intentional note taking, follow ups and task management. Scheduling follow up meetings as well as including a detailed agenda to cover is a good way for your team to be held accountable and to set expectations. Ensuring that any necessary files are accessible in a shared location that allows coauthoring and editing is a good way to enhance collaboration.
Additional Resources
Windows Virtual Desktop Deployment
Quickly provision a cloud remote desktop solution and increase remote employee performance from anywhere in the world.
Teams Adoption
Get your remote employees collaborating in no time with rapid deployment, configuration and end-user training.
Azure Cloud Foundation
Our Azure Cloud Foundation (ACF) creates a well-defined plan for departments, accounts and subscriptions through planning, documentation, strategy and process.
