How To Get Your Employees To Cheerfully Put In MORE Hours

Who doesn’t want employees that are more productive in the workplace? Yet personal issues, illness and family obligations often prevent employees from coming in. That’s why so many employers are now enabling remote access to their network.

Whether you call it “working from home,” or your “virtual office,” the idea is the same; your network is configured to give you and your staff the ability to work from some location other than the office. While most business owners and managers pulling 60 hour work-weeks love the idea of putting in some of those hours from the comfort of their home, they often fear that employees given the same luxury won’t be as productive.

However, studies have shown that employees working from home are actually far more productive than those who are limited to working at the office. The biggest fear is that employees will goof off and not take their job seriously; however, that fear is on the decline as more and more businesses are pursuing this (23 million and growing to be exact!)

While telecommuting will not work in every situation, there is no doubt that technology has made working from home extremely practical whether a few times a month or every week. As a matter of fact, offering work-from-home options can give you a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining the best employees. Here are some additional benefits to allowing your people remote access:

• Employees who are sick can continue to work without infecting the office or losing an entire day of work. 
• Employees forced to stay home to take care of sick family members can continue to work instead of taking off long periods. 
• Inclement weather or heavily congested traffic won’t shut down your office. 
• Key managers with a heavy workload will actually be more productive if given the ability to work from home on evenings and weekends.  
• Allowing employees flexibility during peak workloads (eg. CPAs during tax season) makes employees happier to put in the extra hours from a home office. 
• Employees with temporary or permanent disabilities can continue to be fully functional in a home environment.

 How To Get Started With A Work From Home Program

 While there are several options for remotely accessing your network, there are two primary ways used by most. They are:

Remote Web Workplace:
Pros: It’s easy to use. This method of remote access automatically comes with most Microsoft Small Business Server software. As long as your server is configured properly, you should be able to use the remote features.

Cons: Your desktop in your office has to be turned on and functioning. Because this method actually takes over your computer, any issue with your computer that requires a physical reboot (meaning you need to be there at the machine) renders your work from home session impossible.

Virtual Private Network (VPN):
Pros: Doesn’t rely on another computer in the office to work. Also, a VPN has some flexibility, since it can be set up as a hardware or software VPN.

Cons: Tends to run a little slower than remote web workplace. Basically, if you need to do a lot on your desktop PC, VPN may not be for you.

Want to find out which method is right for you?

Get A Remote Workplace Action Plan

We’ll can review your current situation, help you clarify what you want, discuss various options and put together an Action Plan on the most cost effective, hassle-free way to implement this in your business.

Get Your Action Plan Today:

Call us now at 508-992-2541

E-mail: jessica@thinktechonline.com