Virtual Call Center

The cold weather has set in and employees throughout the colder regions of the market are downing the vitamin C and avoiding the sniffles to try and remain healthy. Cold viruses aside, CIOs and IT managers must take the proper measures to protect their networks from the hazards that can come with winter weather and creating a virtual office is a great step.

Companies that are located in the Midwest and East Coast regions should have a plan in place to keep IT up and running with minimal disruptions or risk to employees well past the New Year’s celebrations. The Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) released estimates that show government office closures due to bad weather cost roughly $100 million a day in lost productivity. A virtual office can help eliminate this lost productivity.

Bad roads, however, don’t mean that business has to stop and Pareto Networks can help. The company suggests that IT departments make the transition to teleworking to ensure that employee productivity, organizational continuity and employee safety can all be maintained throughout the winter months with the set-up of a virtual office.

To help guide the way, Pareto Networks has prepared a “Telework Toolkit for Combating the Cold Season”:

• Company-wide global telework policy: By implementing such a policy, the company can ensure that all employees are aware of the teleworking protocol in the event that weather causes an office closure and the virtual office must be used. If hazardous road conditions or flu/serious illness epidemics occur, teleworking should be mandatory.
• Cloud-based networking solution: This will enable remote workers to connect to a company’s home base. IT should ensure that connectivity and network access are predictable and highly available, even when nasty weather occurs.
• Robust network security: This ensures that all computers used for teleworking can maintain a consistent security stance when accessing the network.
• Employee Training: Educate all teleworkers on how to use Web and video conferencing technologies to facilitate distributed collaboration and how to set up their network, phone, etc., at their virtual office.
• Reduce Costs: Capital and ongoing management costs can be reduced when you deploy your telework infrastructure by considering a cloud-based solution, such as Pareto’s Brand on Demand, which is the industry’s first networking solution that requires no CAPEX investment and offers centralized management in the cloud.

IT departments can smooth the telework transition to the virtual office with some help from Pareto Networks. The company offers a new e-book, as well as a solution demo that shows how companies can better protect their employees as well as continuity and productivity in the face of stormy weather this season.