Working from Home in the world of COVID-19
Working from Home (WFH) was originally only the stock and trade (excuse the pun) of the financial sector. It is now under serious consideration by everyone.
This is because with the current COVID-19 restrictions, and others that may come in, organizations recognize that many of their staff will be at home, whether they like it or not. What they need to do is to bring all their entrepreneurial flair in the solutions they develop to ensure Working from Home is a strategic direction they take, to best allow them to continue to satisfy their clients with what they do. This will be a key element of the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for most organizations now.
Many organizations will be focusing on reviewing and updating their Business Continuity Processes (BCP) like never before, and their people resource is a major factor in this.
Working from Home (or WFH as it has become affectionately known by those who practice it) is possible now due to the significant advances in both hardware and software that allow it to happen almost seamlessly. It is entirely possible now for meetings to be held with attendees in different offices, spread across UK and Ireland and beyond, with people working in their own homes, with others in cafes, and yet still with others in public transport. It allows a significant percentage of an organization’s output to continue regardless of where many of its staff are located.
This is now possible for many organizations, large and small, through the technology they currently operate, and all organizations will be or should be looking at this for their own staff.
Many organizations now also prohibit any and all external personnel from visiting their site. For those organizations where the services of an external management consultant are required, the same systems apply as for internal staff, although some extra thought is needed.
In the recent past, the very recent past, external management consultants needed to be at their client premises for everything. This was the only way that they could be of any real benefit, it was the only way they could access their client systems and documentation, to find out any gaps, and rectify them. It was the only way for them to hold meetings with different teams within the client workforce, such that effectiveness of processes could be improved. It was the only way for the client to benefit from the expert knowledge in management systems that they paid the consultant for.
A few years ago, this all changed. The information and data security systems employed by organizations that allowed their staff the ability to work from home could also be extended to external management consultants under controlled conditions. The consultants could then access much of the data they needed anywhere, anytime. This has been used up to now by multi-site organizations, where the consultant can access data at different sites as they travel between these sites, or if they so choose to WFH.
In our new reality of COVID-19, this technology can and should be adopted by any organization that needs the service of an external management consultant. For example, where an organization has Microsoft 365 systems in place (MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook etc.) the addition of MS Teams as a communication tool allows internal and external Teams to communicate seamlessly across the web, generating solutions to the issues that arise day to day in a production environment, or introducing processes to satisfy the requirements of management system standards ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO45001 etc.
Whatever the case, an ICT solution will exist that will provide the organization with the control they require, and the consultant with the access they need, to ensure the processes improve. Working together to grasp this changed reality.
