According to a survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only around 7% of U.S. employees had access to remote work benefits as of 2019. Then the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world—and the nation. Suddenly, many companies were scrambling to support remote work forces as a way to remain economically viable during shutdowns.
According to Statista, as of April 2020, around 28% of adults who were working before COVID were now able to work from home and were doing so. That’s a 400% increase in work-at-home rates over 2019 figures, so it’s no surprise that many companies struggled with the technological aspects of these changes. From ensuring security to providing help desk support, it’s a different world when your employees are scattered in disparate locations.
Common Technical Issues Faced in Remote Work Environment
You’re likely well aware that technical challenges can come up in any work environment, and tech resources can be busy even when everyone’s under the same roof. But remote work environments bring additional challenges, including:
- Security weaknesses, as employees use VPN and outside networks
- Backup failures, especially if employees save to laptop hard drives instead of cloud resources
- Hardware issues, which can be more difficult to manage when the hardware is in employee homes
The Role of IT Support Services
With remote work now a part of the day-to-day for so many businesses—and the potential for this to continue into the future—tech service support desks are critical for companies of all sizes. Employees need someone to contact via chat or phone who can offer immediate help, especially since workarounds such as sitting at another workstation when hardware is down isn’t an option in a remote environment.
You can’t afford not to have help desk support. Without dedicated IT support, employees may spend much of their work time trying to troubleshoot tech issues. Your teams might also spend more time finding work arounds for common issues such as conferencing software and hardware woes, data and document storage and printing. And chances are that people who are focused on the business will make decisions that are heavy on productivity and efficiency and weaker on security.
The great news is that you don’t need a fully staffed in-house support desk to keep ahead of common remote-work tech issues. Managed IT services let you outsource help desk and tech support tasks to experienced professionals so your staff can concentrate on business-facing work such as customer service, training and production.
At Great Lakes Computer, we offer managed IT services throughout Northeast Ohio. Contact us to find out how we can take the burden off your staff and provide greater peace of mind when you’re dealing with a remote workforce.
