Slingshot and its staff are all well, but to be safe, we are postponing non-urgent travel to clients, and do have some staff working remotely. We’ve also been busy equipping our clients’ staffs to work remotely in a variety of ways. If you have staff that still need a way to remotely work, please let us know, and we’ll be glad to get them going!
Please note, issues with home printers and network (wifi or internet) are tricky to troubleshoot remotely. We’ll do our best to assist, but due diligence is the first order for your staff: turn it off an on again, make sure you can get to google.com, call your ISP, etc.
Also, remote workers need to be extra security conscious! Please make sure that any personal systems used for work are:
- Current on Updates for operating system, Office, and other software.
- Running Antivirus, and current on definitions and scans.
- Protected by a network firewall. Windows’ firewall or wifi routers are ok for home use, but please make sure it’s ON.
- Always attended by staff while business resources are accessible.
(This one bears explaining: Unlike strangers at an airport terminal, staff family members are presumably trustworthy. But they are an *accident* risk to the data and security of your business, its staff, and clients. If using a shared computer, your staff should use a separate login/profile, and logout or lock that when stepping away. )
We’d love to hear from you: Which of your staff is working remotely, and how? Email and web-based tools are obvious, and tools for remote system access like VPN and RWA, but what about video conferencing and chat? (Options like Teams, Slack, Zoom, Skype, and Hangouts make these easy for both internal and external “face-to-face” work.) We’d love to know what’s working well, what isn’t, and what you’d like to try. Happy to advise or more, just let us know.
Thanks, and keep safe,
Rob Eberhardt
Owner / Chief Consultant