If nothing else, we believed that 2020 would bring change – that was the message on our Christmas greeting three months ago. Quite how extensive that change would be isn’t something we predicted.
With Covid-19 (Coronavirus) making headlines globally, many people are, for the first time, changing their working patterns. Increasingly, companies are trialling working from home practices for some of their staff. Or split team working – whereby, half of the team are in the office for the week and the other half work from home. Some are asking all of their staff to work from home to test the capacity of their VPN capabilities. For people working on Service Desks, it’s about trying as much as possible to push self-service to the user communities.
What’s different about the level and duration of home working this time, is that it is likely to be weeks in duration (and maybe even months), not just a few days here or there. This means that the way we work, interact with others and try to complete activities is going to be markedly different from what many people are used to. Virtual conference calls, video chats, working alone will be new things to a number of people. For those in the service industries, working from home may not be possible, until it is decided that even those sectors need to self-isolate on a systematic scale.
For our customers, the effect is significant: they are transforming how they support the IT services that they provide to their organisations. This might be rolling out a unified laptop platform based on Windows 10; automating IT workload tasks to free up resources; or learning which key self-help solutions to deploy rapidly. Many of the solutions we support and advise on, focus on improving the productivity and flexibility of IT service, while at the same time easing the burden on the IT department.
Here at MDB Service Consulting, we are a virtual office company. We get together on a periodic basis face-to-face, but the majority of what we do is on-site with our customers, following the same guidelines as our customers’ staff and contractors with current work practices; or else we work from home. During these unsettled times, our customers will still receive the same focus, dedication and outcomes, however, they may not “see” as much of us as they are used to. (Unless we are participating in video calls!).
Take a look at a great article published by Forbes that gives 6 great tips for successfully working from home. If you have a few minutes, it is well worth a read.
Stay safe and let us know if we can help you fortify your IT systems at a time when this is needed most, to enable teams and businesses to continue to perform and deliver results in these challenging conditions.
Author
Martin Summerhayes
Head of Transformation Services at MDB SERVICE CONSULTING LIMITED