4 steps to enable your employees working from home

The side effects of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in businesses revealed the fundamental necessity of having a digital infrastructure to keep up with operational performance.

In an attempt to limit the infection, governments have cautioned companies to let employees work from home, as dozens of cities are already shut down and the population is quarantined.

In these situations, being able to telecommute and secure your business cash flow is critical for survival.

So, how do you enable your employees to work from home and what does it take to manage them efficiently?

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.

STEP 1:

MAP OUT YOUR PROCESSES

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

You want to know the exact responsibilities of each employee and how they interact with the company internal assets (other employees, providers, partners...) and external players (consumers, government, media...).

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

Having a service blueprint will support your business not only for telecommuting purposes, but it will also give you the necessary intel to better design and review your processes, decrease bottlenecks and identify contact points between your organization and its consumers.

STEP 2:

CHOOSE THE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

THAT BEST FIT YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL

Once you have a clear overview of your processes flow and employees responsibilities, the next step is to identify which tools you can implement in your digital infrastructure.

There are thousands upon thousands of tools out there, so be careful: you don’t necessarily have to pick the best tools in the market, but those that best fit your organizational model.

Your virtual office must be based on as few tools as possible. The main objective is to concentrate all the activities in one or two platforms.

The more platforms you use, the higher the costs (in terms of money, time and skillset). You and your team need time to switch among the platforms and each one requires different skills and knowledge to be managed. Also consider the expensive monthly fees that you have to pay.

Every organization can digitalize all processes and activities that don’t require an actual physical presence in the workplace.

For example, if you own a warehouse, you need the physical presence of employees in the workplace to move goods, unless you use robots.

On the contrary, if you have a retail store, you can easily sell your goods online with an e-commerce site. You can eventually mix the two selling channels (offline and online) to generate more revenue and broaden your target audience.

In the following paragraphs, I will cover some of the main areas that you can digitize. You will also get to see some of the tools I usually use with my clients regarding:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management);

• Sales;

• Marketing;

• Team Management;

• All the activities that can be done with a computer (e.g. design, programming, advertising...);

• Customer Service;

• Accounting and invoicing;

• Reporting.

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

Whether you are starting a new digitization process or redesigning your digital infrastructure, having an all-embracing CRM saves a lot of headache.

For SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises), I suggest Wix. Wix is not just a website builder, since it integrates an all-inclusive CRM and marketing system. Here are my thoughts on this amazing platform.

Screenshot of Wix drag and drop editor.

Thanks to its drag and drop editor, Wix allows you to build a website quickly and easily. You can start selling your product or service right away. Everything is included for a couple of hundred dollars per year.

The main advantage of using Wix is that you have everything you need to run your business in one platform.

If you want to enable telecommuting for your subordinates without a hitch, you want a:

1. CRM and task management;

2. Marketing system;

3. Financial tool.

You find all these fundamental components in Wix.

Your employees can access your Wix account, communicate with the internal chat and collaborate by creating tasks and workflows through Wix CRM. Besides, the latter allows you to take care of your contacts and manage permissions for private website sections

With Ascend by Wix you can create email marketing campaigns and automations. You can promote your content on social media and much more. In other words, you don’t need external providers like MailChimp, for example.

Example of marketing automations in Ascend by Wix.

The CRM is also integrated with Wix Invoice which you can use to send quotes and invoices.

You don't even need PayPal or Stripe, because you can manage your payments and chargebacks through Wix Payments. This payment system is totally integrated with your website, so your customers are not redirected to a different domain. In