As the Coronovirus pandemic intensifies globally, businesses are facing another kind of outbreak. There is an increase in cyber security attacks. In this article we outline how to secure your business and best tools for securing your business while working from home.
Ensuring that your business is always at its peak performance during this work-from-home era is vital, especially because many small businesses have taken a hit following the implementation of lockdown in most countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you have a craving desire to see your business grow even though you and your remote team have to work from home, this guide will show you the best methods to secure your business and to keep it growing in this WFH era.
What Are the Best Methods for Securing Your Business While Working from Home?
It may be quite challenging to keep your business afloat while you and your remote team work from home. Things even get more difficult especially if you are inexperienced with this setup. After all, even those who have been doing it for some time still encounter problems along the way.
With the right methods, however, you can meet and even surpass the goals and expectations you have set up for your business. The following techniques may be what you need to maintain steady growth in your business:
1. Build the Perfect Remote Team
Every successful business has a record of highly intelligent, smart, and efficient employees. If you want your business to be at its best while your remote workforce work from home, ensure your remote employees are the best you can have.
Ever wondered why top companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Google always fish out the best talent? It’s definitely not because they can afford the payments, even though they can. Instead, it’s because they know they’ll scale faster with brilliant minds handling the most critical tasks.
If you already have a remote team who are doing their best to meet up with the demands of your business, then you should invest your money in helping them get better at their work. Organize online training, seminars, and boot camps so your remote workforce can stay on top of their games.
2. Don’t Do All the Work
Most business owners often make the mistake of trying to micromanage their operations. Being enthusiastic about your business and not wanting it to crash because of another person’s carelessness is commendable.
However, if you don’t want to burn out quickly, you have to learn how to outsource some of your important tasks to other people. We recommend hiring a remote personal assistant to help you handle most of your essential tasks.
An advantage of outsourcing your tasks to a remote personal assistant is that you will have enough time to brainstorm on innovations that you can implement in your business. You will also have time to review, commend, and correct the work that other people are doing for you.
3. Use the Right WFH Tools for Your Business
No matter the level of activity and efficiency you exhibit personally, you still can’t ensure the smooth running of your business, without the right tools to make work easier for both you and your remote team.
Some of the most commonly used WFH tools that most business owners are applying for themselves and their remote workers include the following:
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
Slack
Slack is a communication tool that aids interaction between employers and their remote team, with text, audio chat, and video call features. You can also use Slack to safely and securely share and track documents, images, and videos with your remote workforce.
Slack also allows you to perform searches from history in case you need to quickly access information that has been shared on the platform before. Other useful features include a customizable sidebar and the ability to set reminders.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a WFH tool that brings all of Office 365 into a single platform. From this tool, you can access other useful apps, such as email and Skype for communication, and OneDrive and SharePoint for secure file sharing and storage.
Teams can be used on Android devices, making it a WFH tool that you can use while you’re on the go. It also features a chat room, call and video conferencing for holding online meetings, and lots more.
Zoom
Zoom has features that are perfect for holding online meetings with your remote team seamlessly. The platform supports screen sharing, HD call and video conferencing for up to 1,000 participants. It can also be used across many devices, from personal computers to mobile phones.
Trello
Trello is an easy-to-use project management software with an attractive interface. Trello makes the organization of projects to be smooth and seamless for remote teams with features such as a detailed and quick overview of cards, drag-and-drop editing, in-line editing, labeling, tagging, and commenting.
The software has a progress meter checklist for identifying the progress your remote workforce is making on assigned tasks. You can also upload files on local devices, Dropbox, Google Drive, and more on Trello.
4. Be Big on Time Management and Employee Monitoring
There are many common sayings about time management, which you most likely know, such as “tick says the clock… what you have to do, do quickly,” or the bigger one that may get you thinking if you take the time to brood on it: “time is life.”
Every second counts in business, and each time spent can never be recovered. That’s why it’s vital to ensure that you and your remote workforce are handling tasks and completing them well in the shortest time possible.
It is easy to yield to laziness, procrastination, and distractions while working from home, so you need a tool that can monitor your remote team and also keep you in check while you carry out your tasks from home.
Traqq is one of the best time tracking apps that you can use to keep tabs on what you and your remote workforce is doing while working from home. Some of the standard features of Traqq time management app includes the following:
- Monitoring employee activities with screen sharing, automated screenshots, and videos
- Detailed reports and timesheets
- Mouse and keyboard tracking
- App and website monitoring
- Adding and editing time manually
- Automating reporting and invoicing.
Google Drive
Google Drive is a tool that enables users to store their files in a cloud safely and securely. You can then access some of your files in the cloud storage offline. Google Drive also allows you to customize how you share files with your remote team with specific permissions that you can set.
With Google Drive, you can have direct access to many other Google apps, including Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Forms.
PDF Format For Your Files
One of the most valuable aspects of managing your business online is that there are more options and choices when it comes to saving your clients’ files and documents. This is especially true when you choose to convert your JPG to PDF files in your business. Doing so won’t only give you the option to save them, but also add new graphics to the file so that it’ll look even better than it already is.
Here are the benefits of converting JPG to PDF in your business:
Build A Good Business Image:
When it comes to any business, having a good online image is always an advantage, which can be achieved if you convert a JPG to a PDF file. When you create an image through a JPG file, you’ll have the capability to display your company logo and name, as well as the product or service that you offer to all your clients and customers. This is why it’s very important that you’re able to convert this image into a PDF file so that you can have the best of everything that your clients and customers can expect from your business.
Advertising Purposes:
There are many ways in which you can make sure that your company will be seen by as many people as possible, one of which is by using your JPG to create your company’s ad design. This will include the words, pictures, logos, as well as links to your website that you’re using in your ad campaign.
Increase Brand Visibility:
One of the benefits of having this file is that it’ll help your web business become popular. You can use this file to create a different format that can be used on the internet as well as other types of sites. This means that you’ll be able to get your JPG to become more visible on the internet.
Shareable:
Another benefit of having this file type in your business is that you can share it with your clients. This means that you’ll be able to send them a copy of your website in case they have questions or concerns about your business. Also, there are still people, businesses, and suppliers that only receive files thru fax. With this in mind, an applicable free fax online service will help you share your PDF files or any files thru fax.
Conclusion
Securing your business in this WFH era should be your top priority. If that’s the case, you should ensure you have the best remote team working with you on your business, and with the right tools at your disposal to monitor your remote team and organize your work better.