Remote Infrastructure Management - A Growing Trend To Support Remote Workforce

A 2019 study estimated that 43 percent of U.S. companies allowed some degree of remote work before the COVID-19 crisis. It was promoted by some businesses because they lacked physical space while others provided it as a bonus or as an occasional benefit.

The COVID-19 crisis forced corporations to close their offices quickly and provide the staff with short notice to work remotely. The decisions were required, in most cases, by shelter-in-place orders or to curtail the spread of infection. The rush to remote work resulted in numerous operational challenges, and technology was leading the list.

As working from home becomes the new normal in the post-COVID world, let’s discuss the benefits and challenges associated with it.

Benefits

Employee Hiring during COVID – Businesses that are hiring during COVID are free from looking at employees who reside in the same city/town. This opens up more candidate choices and renders greater opportunity.

Increased Productivity- Businesses with remote workforce are said to have been seeing better productivity during COVID. Employees tend to have more time on hand and are better driven in terms of energy levels to deliver when working remotely.

Financially feasible – Businesses have seen a drastic drop in overall expenses. Starting from real-estate spending, infrastructure, electricity, etc. The concept of remote working or working with a smaller staff at the office premises has been economical for businesses.

Disadvantages

Difficult to Monitor Performance – It is not easy for a manager to monitor the progress and work of his employees without them being in the same office space. This is especially true when the role of the position requires a lot of “background assignments” that are not accounted for in the work system.

Reduced employee integration – When employees work from home, they are less involved with other team members. Lack of communication between employees can reduce teamwork among employees. It can also mean missing out on “team meetings, grievance resolutions, and requesting clarifications” at work, and activities like daily updates and possible promotions when you are less involved.

Bigger Problems – Simple problems like software issues are harder to solve when employees are away from the office. It is more difficult and time-consuming to help someone over the phone than in person.

Increase in Telecommunication Costs – The amount of time spent on the phone increases when you work from home. For employers, this means constant calling for updates, issues, follow-ups, and clarification.

More Distractions – There may be an increase in the number of distractions you encounter at home. Factors such as noisy neighbors, family members or friends can hamper productivity and concentration. You may be more annoyed than you think.

Employees never leave work – Staying at home means “never leaving the office.” This can mean that it is increasingly difficult to “shut down” from the job you were doing that day. All of these can increase stress and anxiety.

Challenges to IT

The outbreak of COVID-19 affects all areas of organizations. A rise in the remote workforce has created capability and skill set challenges for the IT divisions of companies, inhibiting their ability to execute and serve rapidly evolving organizational needs.

Here is a closer look at three common challenges for IT teams due to the growth in the remote workforce.

Communication Tools

VPN infrastructure, instant messaging applications, and collaboration applications are subject to rigorous user load testing in many organizations. When IT doesn’t provide a viable solution, users turn to options like Facebook, Messenger, Google Hangouts, or Dropbox themselves to essentially ignore IT recommendations and compromise security.

IT support structure

Since many people work from home and there is no personal contact between the user and the IT department, an IT support structure based on clear rules and supported by multi-channel communication tools is essential. IT should immediately equip users with tools they can use to successfully solve their own problems and interact with support if necessary. With solutions in place, IT can effectively manage expectations, respond to reported issues in a timely manner, and successfully prioritize its own actions based on real-world data.

IT service desk

Service desks and “ticketing tools” have long been considered the backbone of IT practice. They have become important IT tools to keep businesses running efficiently and stabilize the technology side of corporate management, even in the pandemic.

Remote Infrastructure Management

Remote infrastructure management (RIM) is a mechanism for monitoring and managing IT infrastructure (data center, networks, email, computers, storage, ERP, OS, protection, servers, support, database, software, telephony, endpoints, and services) from a remote location with the ability to carry out remedial actions to facilitate continuous accessibility. An administrator just needs to make on-site repairs with RIM, when hardware fails.

Why Remote Infrastructure Management?

With RIM, you can track your IT operations from any location and can spot errors in real-time. This makes it easier to promptly resolve any repair and reconstruction needs, enabling business continuity around the clock. So when these tasks are handled remotely across all your business locations, you save immensely on both time and money. Some benefits of RIM-

Based on your unique criteria, you can access individualized services. This implies that what you outsource and what stays on-site can be selected.
The cost of outsourcing maintenance is lower than investing in a separate IT department.
RIM vendors may provide tech support around the clock and each account typically has dedicated teams assigned to them.
As part of their offerings, service providers also conduct infrastructure analysis. This will help you detect and remove challenges, improve efficiency, and optimize for success in your current infrastructure.
As necessary, you will have access to patch management and updates.
Since internal IT resources are less reliant, both system availability and uptime increase. RIM service providers have agreements with other service providers, ensuring that both server uptime and network redundancy are constant.
Your ongoing network device plan will include the latest technologies.

Conclusion

Outsourcing Infrastructure Management with EoraTech enables businesses to focus on core business and meet rising business demands without inflating the IT budget. Reach out to EoraTech for more information.