4 steps to enable your employees working from home

The side effects of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on businesses revealed a fundamental truth: if your digital infrastructure is flimsy, remote work will expose it fast.

In an attempt to limit infections, governments encouraged companies to let employees work from home, while cities shut down and populations quarantined.

In these situations, being able to telecommute and protect cash flow isn’t “nice to have.”

It’s survival.

So, how do you enable your employees to work from home—and manage them efficiently?

Remote work doesn’t fail because people are at home. It fails because processes are unclear, tools are messy, goals are vague, and security is… optimistic.

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Table of contents

1. Map your processes;

2. Implement the right management tools;

3. Manage your employees with a goal-oriented mindset;

4. Apply the best practices to manage your cybersecurity.

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STEP 1:

MAP OUT YOUR PROCESSES

The first step to securing the performance of your business ecosystem is mapping out all your processes.

You want to know:

• The exact responsibilities of each employee;

• How they interact with internal assets (colleagues, providers, partners…);

• How they interact with external players (customers, government, media…).

If you haven’t mapped this, remote work becomes a daily improv show—except nobody’s laughing and your margins are the punchline.

I’ve already written a complete guide on how to make a business flowchart, so take a peek at my article about service blueprint.

A service blueprint supports your business not only for telecommuting, but also to:

• Review and redesign processes,

• Decrease bottlenecks,

• Identify contact points between your organization and customers.

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STEP 2:

CHOOSE THE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

THAT BEST FIT YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL

Once you have a clear overview of process flows and responsibilities, the next step is identifying which tools to implement in your digital infrastructure.

There are thousands of tools out there, so be careful: you don’t necessarily need the best tools on the market, but the ones that fit your organizational model.

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Keep the “virtual office” simple

Your remote ecosystem should be based on as few tools as possible.

The goal is to concentrate activities into one or two platforms.

The more platforms you use:

• The higher the costs (money, time, skillset),

• The more context-switching your team suffers,

• The more monthly subscriptions quietly eat your profit.

And yes—everyone will swear they “need” each tool.

They don’t.

They need outcomes.

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What can you digitize?

Every organization can digitize processes that don’t require physical presence.

• If you own a warehouse, you need people on-site to move goods (unless you use robots).

• If you own a retail store, you can sell online with an e-commerce site—and even mix offline + online to broaden your audience.

Below are some of the main areas you can digitize.

I’ll also share tools I often use with clients for:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

• Sales

• Marketing

• Team Management

• Computer-based work (design, programming, advertising…)

• Customer Service

• Accounting and invoicing

• Reporting

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For SMEs: Wix as a website builder and all-inclusive CRM

Whether you’re starting a digitization process or redesigning your infrastructure, having an all-in-one CRM saves headaches.

For SMEs, I often suggest Wix, because it combines a website builder with CRM and marketing features.

Wix drag-and-drop editor used to build and edit pages quickly.

Thanks to its drag-and-drop editor, Wix lets you build a website quickly and start selling right away.

The main advantage is focus: everything in one place.

If you want telecommuting without chaos, you want:

• CRM + task management

• Marketing system

• Financial tool

Wix includes these building blocks through its CRM and business tools.

Your employees can access the Wix account, collaborate, create tasks/workflows, and manage contacts and permissions for private site areas via the CRM.

With Ascend by Wix, you can create email marketing campaigns and automations (so you’re not forced to bolt-on external tools for everything).

Example of marketing automations in Ascend by Wix.

The CRM is also integrated with invoicing/quotes tools, so you can send quotes and invoices without juggling another platform.

Need help setting up your Wix ecosystem? 

Schedule a digital marketing consultancy with me—I’ll guide you through the whole process.

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For corporations: HubSpot as a website builder and all-inclusive CRM

For bigger and more complex organizations, I recommend HubSpot.

HubSpot is expensive, but it’s one of the strongest all-in-one platforms to scale.

You can build your website with a drag-and-drop editor and rely on HubSpot’s infrastructure.

One major advantage is the ability to personalize experiences and support different go-to-market motions with one connected platform.

Example of a drag-and-drop page editor experience (HubSpot CMS).

HubSpot can gather data and support different experiences for different users (new vs returning visitors, different segments, and so on)—which can improve user experience and lead generation when implemented well.

In addition, HubSpot offers a set of integrated “Hubs” (products), including:

• HubSpot CRM (free CRM capabilities available)

• Marketing Hub (campaign management, automations, lead generation, etc.)

• Sales Hub (pipeline + sales activity management, tracking, etc.)

• Service Hub (ticketing/customer service tooling on the same platform)

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Manage your team remotely with Teamwork

If you don’t want—or can’t—use an all-in-one platform, I suggest adding Teamwork to your infrastructure.

In my career, I’ve tried many project management tools (Monday, Trello, ActiveCollab…).

The one that consistently covers what I need is Teamwork.

I have a significant track record in telecommuting since, as a digital marketing consultant, I work remotely. Also, when I was Digital Director USA for a multinational company in 2017, I managed about 40 employees located in India and the US while I was in Italy.

A project management tool is fundamental for remote work because it helps you:

• Organize workflow and workload,

• Assign responsibilities clearly,

• Track progress,

• Manage priorities,

• And—crucially—turn objectives into measurable execution.

Tools like Teamwork let you assign tasks with a clean framework:

• Title

• Owner

• Start date + deadline

• Privacy layers

• Priority

• Notifications

Creating and assigning a task in a project management tool like Teamwork.

This methodology works because employees have all the information needed to execute—and you can measure performance using tracking and reporting.

Teamwork also expands into adjacent workflows (chat, help desk/ticketing, etc.) through its ecosystem.

Would you like to implement Teamwork in your organization?

Book a digital marketing consultancy with me and get the training you need to guide and manage your team remotely.

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Digitize your accounting and invoicing with Wave Financial

I’ve used Wave for personal and business accounting for years, and I often suggest it—especially for smaller businesses that want a clean workflow for invoicing + bookkeeping.

I also prefer Wave’s experience compared to some alternatives.

(As always: evaluate based on your needs, compliance requirements, and local regulations.)

Wave dashboard used to manage bookkeeping and business finances.

With Wave you can:

• Manage invoicing and payments,

• Track transactions and expenses,

• Keep your financial records organized,

• And support paperless workflows for remote teams.

Wave transactions view for categorizing and tracking business expenses.

Wave supports multi-user access so your team can operate remotely while keeping roles and workflows controlled.

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Manage your documents and all of your meetings with G Suite

Google Workspace (previously branded as G Suite) provides collaboration tools for businesses, freelancers, and schools.

It enables teams to collaborate—often simultaneously—on:

• Documents

• Spreadsheets

• Presentations

• Shared calendars and video calls

Google Drive helps you archive key business assets (images, videos, docs, files) so employees can access what they need remotely.

Google Calendar helps reduce the back-and-forth by letting clients and partners book time with you, and it integrates with Google Meet for video calls.

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STEP 3:

SET SMART GOALS FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES

If you want to maintain (and maybe improve) operational performance, you need a goal-oriented mindset.

One remote-work fear is evaluating performance:

“How do I know they’re working if I don’t see them?”

Many business owners assume performance is tied to physically seeing people at a desk.

That’s wrong.

Performance should be evaluated through results and achievements.

An employee can sit at a workplace for hours and achieve nothing.

That’s why you need SMART goals.

SMART is an acronym that (depending on the model) can have small variations, but the core idea is consistent: set objectives that are clear and trackable.

In this article’s framework, SMART means:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attractive

• Reachable

• Timed 

If you want to learn more, read my guide on how to set and achieve SMART marketing goals.

Also: setting SMART goals becomes dramatically easier with a project management tool.

If you use Teamwork, tasks naturally map to SMART-style execution (owner, deadline, priority, deliverable).

Goal-based operations also keep teams motivated because people can see what “good” looks like—and how to improve it.

Without SMART goals, controlling relevant KPIs becomes almost impossible.

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STEP 4:

MANAGE THE SECURITY OF YOUR DIGITAL ASSETS

Cybersecurity matters even more in a remote setup.

Your team needs internet access and access to company assets to do their work.

Your tools invest in security, yes—but your biggest risk is often access mismanagement (passwords, permissions, sloppy sharing).

Start with these rules:

• Create a company profile with “superpowers” (admin) for each platform;

• Keep admin credentials secret and stored safely;

• Give employees individual access to platforms (via email/phone invites);

• If individual access isn’t possible, use a password manager.

Individual access is preferred because:

• You can revoke access instantly without changing the admin password,

• Responsibility is traceable,

• Damage is limited if a single account is compromised.

If everyone uses the same admin credential, a breach becomes a fire drill:

• Change the password immediately,

• Update everyone,

• Hope nothing critical was exported in the meantime.

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The best password management tool

Managing passwords properly is fundamental for security—especially when people join/leave the company and you need onboarding/offboarding to be fast and controlled.

I suggest using Bitwarden, a freemium password manager with a strong transparency story (open source).

Bitwarden password manager, used to store and share credentials securely.

Three reasons I like Bitwarden:

• It has a free plan that covers a lot for individuals and small setups,

• It’s open source (public codebase),

• It supports team management features (adding/removing users, permission layers, etc.).

Extra security tip: follow modern password guidance (longer passwords/passphrases, avoid forced periodic resets unless there’s a compromise, and use MFA where available).

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CONCLUSIONS

Remote work is not “turn on Zoom and hope.”

It’s operational design.

If you want your team to work from home without productivity collapsing, focus on:

1. Processes (map them),

2. Tools (keep them few and integrated),

3. Goals (manage by outcomes, not chair-time),

4. Security (permissions, individual access, password hygiene).

What tools do you think are most effective to enable your team working from home?

Tell me yours in the comments below.

Do you want me to implement the best digital infrastructure for your business? Book a free 15-min talk with me!

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References

• World Health Organization. Getting your workplace ready for COVID-19 (Mar 19, 2020).

• Doran, George T. “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives.” Management Review, 70(11), 35–36 (1981).

• NIST. Special Publication 800-63B: Digital Identity Guidelines — Authentication and Lifecycle Management (latest PDF).

• Bitwarden. “Open source password manager.”

• Google Workspace. “Google Workspace includes Gmail, Drive, Meet, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides…”

• Wix. “Free CRM Software” + “Ascend by Wix overview / Email marketing features.”

• HubSpot. “HubSpot products / CRM / Service Hub.”

• Teamwork.com. “Project management platform” + “Teamwork Desk.”

• Wave. “Wave Financial: invoicing, payments, accounting” + “Payroll integrates with accounting/invoicing.”