Recent Blog Posts

The COVID-19 Situation Assorted state regulations have imposed lockdowns across the country that have caused various issues for businesses. As you would imagine, many of them are not good, and when compared to a few recent trends, they only seem worse. For instance, in the first quarter of this year, the CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Confidence Index demonstrated a generally positive outlook, and mere weeks later, it plunged from 64 to 48. The National Small Business Association saw similar drops in confidence, witnessing a benchmark far below the levels seen during the Great Recession. With 2019 serving as a great year for many, businesses have truly been thrown for a loop across the board. 72 percent of business owners are predicting that COVID-19 will have a lasting impact on the way their businesses will operate in the future, and many businesses simply won?t be able to outlast the pandemic. Adding to these concerns, many businesses fear that the uncertainty and inherent issues with restarting operations on a regional basis could create issues pertaining to competition and other crucial market factors?in addition to the potential health risks associated with reopening too soon. The hard truth of the matter is this: moving forward, businesses will need to redefine the status quo to survive (especially as the tide of the pandemic ebbs and surges). With the future still uncertain regarding how COVID-19 will play out moving forward, businesses need to adapt and move forward to any extent possible. What Businesses Will Need to Do There are a lot of factors that organizations of all kinds will need to consider as more people return to (some approximation of) business as usual. Communication People all over the world are really concerned about their job security, in addition to all the other concerns that COVID-19 has brought up. Maintaining an open stream of communication with your employees in addition to what your operations require will prove to be crucial. Face-to-face contact is also likely to be seen as a largely unnecessary risk, so other forms of communication are more likely to take over for some time. This all means that your business will need the tools to make this possible. Workplace Safety While we have already touched upon the concerns that your employees may have working face-to-face, many businesses will likely re-examine their approach entirely. Using more of their digital tools and the improved opportunities that they offer will only make it safer for your employees to do their jobs effectively. If these tools don?t fit your business? operations, other means can work great for you?such as staggering your employees? shifts to ensure social distancing. Look to the Future Of course, with the future so uncertain right now, you need to prepare as best you can for any eventuality. The technology that is available today enables your employees to work remotely while still collaborating with their fellow team members. Ensuring that you have the capability to scale to meet your needs by using the cloud will be more than helpful, it will be crucial. Businesses have always needed to shift and adjust to meet the changing times?the current situation we are all facing is just another example of that, dialed up to eleven. Technology has always been developed to address these complications. White Mountain IT Services can help you to […]

Creating the Ideal Task Many productivity gurus (and assorted other authorities on the subject) have lent their expertise and created a rubric to help do just this: Step + Detail + Deadline + Context = Task This rubric Is particularly useful for creating single tasks, as well as individual steps in a larger process. Let?s go into these four components piece-by-piece. Step With each task, there is going to be some inherent action necessary, so you need to address what that action needs to be. Does someone need to research something, write something, or simply check into something? Tell them what needs to be done for their goal to be accomplished. Detail You also need to provide additional information concerning each task for context and clarity. This would include things like: The person or department who is responsible for completing this task The purpose of the task that they should strive to accomplish Why this task is important to the overall goal Where any resources can be found to assist with the task and general guidance to help complete it Deadline Once you?ve outlined what the task is, you need to identify when the task should be completed by. This helps ensure that projects are completed in a timely fashion, with certain milestones achieved within a certain timeframe. Context Finally, you need to include other pertinent details about a task, including how much time may be spent on it, which project it is for, and what priority level it should have. This gives the person responsible for the task more information as they organize their schedule. Let?s assume that you want to throw a surprise pizza party for your team, and so you wanted to give one trusted employee (we?ll assume he?s named Bob) the responsibility of ensuring the food was ordered ahead of time. The task you assign to Bob might look like this: ?Order Food for Staff Surprise Party on Friday Assigned to BOB ? Priority 3 *If unable to complete, please inform HR* Wednesday: 3:15 ? Get credit card from HR and call Pizzeria Porfirio. Place order for three large pizzas with peppers and onion and 75 of their house special chicken wings to be delivered Friday at 4:45. Friday: 1:00 ? Call Pizzeria Porfirio to confirm delivery? That?s all there is to tasking out a process for your team to follow. There are also software solutions available to make this even easier for you and your team, so long as you keep these practices in mind and completely task out the things you assign to others. The clearer the process is, the more likely it is to be successful. For more handy tips to boost your business? productivity, make sure you subscribe to our blog!

The COVID-19 pandemic is the first time many of us have had to deal with this level of threat, and now that businesses start to re-open in an attempt to stagnate a recessionary dive in the economy, there is a lot of ground to cover. Today, we go through the considerations you need to make, and the actions you need to take, to keep your business clear of COVID-19, and what steps to take if the virus makes its way into your business.  Mitigation Understand Requirements While stay-at-home orders may be lifted, there are many other regulatory bodies and authorities that will put forth various restrictions for the sake of public health. Whether imposed by federal, state, or local governments, or tailored to a particular industry that has specific requirements for their operations, it is critical that these directives are followed to the letter. In the current situation, this becomes especially important in terms of the standards assigned by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC). Make sure you take the time to check for additional requirements applicable to your business? industry, in addition to what applies to all businesses. Compliance to ADA Rules Many workplaces may consider testing for COVID-19 before allowing access to a business? premises by anyone, which itself will require a few decisions to be made (how these tests are administered, who administers them, and the type of test to be used) and for these results to be protected as medical information. The Americans with Disabilities Act and other assorted state laws also outline that these tests are only permitted if there is doubt that an employee can perform their job without posing a threat to themselves or their coworkers. While this standard was deemed to have been met by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, any updates could potentially change whether or not this screening is allowed. Check with your legal counsel before proceeding with these protocols. Office Cleanliness From your workplace to the employees to work there, you need to do everything you can to encourage a cleaner and healthier environment. Provide a few reminders pertaining to basic hygiene practices around the workplace, and make sure that it is cleaned and disinfected properly. Keeping the HVAC systems well-maintained and the office well ventilated also helps. Social Distancing Adoption Of course, we can?t discuss mitigating COVID-19 without bringing up social distancing. While many businesses are notorious for their close-quarter layouts, shared resources, and even their displays of etiquette, these need to be adjusted to maintain the recommended six feet (or more) of distance between people. Stagger shifts and enable telework, put up barriers and mark off boundaries, and discourage in-person meetings. Safety Protocols and Precautions It will also be necessary for you to put new rules and procedures in place to better ensure that your workplace is contributing as little risk as possible for your employees. This means that you will need to assign someone the responsibility of overseeing that all workplace processes are compliant with safety regulations. You will also need to be prepared to provide as many protections as possible for your employees, handle your staff and their potential absences in accordance with the law, and (as we?ll cover below) properly deal with an […]

Protecting Home Base Physical security is one of those elements of business that you either love or hate. The people who love it tend to be deliberate, patient people. The people who don?t tend to want access right now and without hindrances. First, it is a balancing act. Secondly, it?s ants vs. elephants. You need to protect your investments, your staff, your data, and your physical technology.  There are all types of things that you can do to increase your level of physical security.  Get an access control system – This option is probably the most prudent physical security investment you can make. There are all types of solutions: key fob, ID card, smartphone, even biometric. The idea is simply to get a read on when people come and go, what they need access to, and to protect company assets with the use of technology. Get some security swag – When people feel like they?re being watched they don?t tend to be as foolish as when they know they aren?t. Getting some digital security cameras can provide you with eyes (and ears) all over your business, and they serve as a pretty good deterrent, too. Security! – If you don?t mind spending some money, one of the very best ways to promote security at your place of business is to, in fact, hire some. Albeit, expensive, if you have personnel on duty, not many physical security problems will come your business? way. Protecting your place of business is extremely important and, on some level, has to be a priority. Problems of physical security don?t just extend to peddlers and madmen; they can more often result in more subdued problems such as cybercrime. To that end… The Battle Against Cybercrime Cybersecurity can be a problem from inside your office, but more often it comes from outside your network, even if (as we?ll talk about later) it?s often triggered by someone on your side. In order to sufficiently protect your Internet-facing systems, you?ll need a plan that includes the following routine actions: Software patching – In order to keep the software your business relies on from being a direct avenue to your data, you will need to ensure that each piece of software is routinely patched and updated regularly.  Spam blocking – Your organization gets literally hundreds or thousands of messages per day coming in from senders you didn?t request anything from. In order to separate the legitimate mail from all the other rubbish, you will need to have a spam blocker in place. Firewalls – You will want to make sure that firewalls are set up on all applicable spots on your network. A well-updated enterprise firewall will catch most malicious software that is thrown at it.  Multi-Factor Authentication – Where you can, you should be using two-factor authentication. It may take a few moments longer to get into your account (more if you left your smartphone in the car), but it will be worth it when you don?t see a data breach.  Use of security tools for work outside of the office – Today?s business is a remote business. Making your team utilize secure connections–whether it be through a password-protected remote access software or with the use of a virtual private network–is a great strategy to keep business data safe. […]

What Are Business Communications? Business communications are effectively what it says on the package: the processes that a business has in place to enable communication to take place between different people, internal and external, that are associated with a business. Internal business communications are those that take place between different people within a business, from the intern to the CEO, while external business communications are those that involve parties that are not a part of the business itself?like your communications with your vendors or your clients. As you would probably imagine, these important communications can quickly spiral out of control, which is part of the reason why many businesses adopt a unified communications policy which is a means of connecting your various methods together into one integrated strategy. How Do Business Communications Interact Within a Unified Communications Platform? Think of it this way? let?s assume that your business has a messaging platform that allows for click-to-talk functionality. That platform would be considered a UC platform. As unified communications allow a conversation to take place across different platforms and formats, different methods of business communications can be leveraged in conjunction with one another to more productively convey information. As a result, collaborative efforts become simpler and more productive for a business. How Does This Impact Business Operations? While there are some considerations to keep in mind, like how unified communications can introduce new access points into your network and complicate your security, there are some considerable benefits to be had. For instance, aside from the productivity and collaboration improvements you would expect, unified communications can help simplify the remote work process for your team, while also helping to improve customer service. How Unified Communications Matter with COVID-19 As COVID-19 wreaks havoc around the world, it is crucial to your business? short and long-term survival that you maintain your ability to communicate both internally and externally. Internally, it is crucial that you use your tools to keep your employees in the loop for the remainder of the situation. While you need to keep your employees updated as to how your company will be operating considering COVID-19?s influence, you also need to continue the kind of communications that are required for your business-as-usual operations. Externally, you need to scale back any hard selling you may be participating in and focus primarily on maintaining contact with those you serve. If there is something that you?re doing that can help them, make them aware of that. Otherwise, focus on support and awareness. Communication is one of the most important things to keep in mind during any serious event. Make sure you put the systems in place to help maintain it now. Reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800 for assistance.