Return to Work Communications Planning: A Business Owner’s Quick Guide

Responsibility for economic revival lies at top of every business and public sector organisation.

Leaders need to be asking themselves a set of questions to prepare for what lies ahead!!

1. Am I looking to phase 100% of my employees back to work later this year, or just a proportion of them?

2. Can I reduce our Company’s office footprint by extending our “work from home” (WFH) policy, with the use of suitable technology?

3. If some employees continue to eliminate their commuting time, can I increase their overall productivity and so achieve more with less?

4. Do I know that each of my WFH employees have a home working environment, bandwidth & PC tools which is conducive with my Company’s long-term goals and quality aspirations?

5. How easily can my WFH employees be linked to my Company’s Telephone system to allow familiar features (eg hunt groups, divert on busy, call transfer, receptionist features) to continue to be used in their new working environment, on any device, anywhere in the world?

6. Are my WFH employees struggling with inferior webcams & earbuds impacting upon their satisfaction and the perception of quality by our customers & suppliers?

7. Are WFH employees able to be briefed in daily team meetings, visually and with presentation content, making them still feel connected to my Company?

8. Can all my smaller meeting rooms be prepared prior to “Return to Work” ready for business-to-multihomed communication – video, echo-free audio, PC presentation, whiteboarding, digital device connectivity?

9. Will we be able to record meetings, stream them live, or stream them on demand for those that miss an important meeting or briefing?

10. Am I being advised on the most suitable cloud communications offering? Is it globally interoperable? Many are free at the moment, but maybe with hidden costs. Are we testing the right one, and getting meaningful feedback during this ideal testing period?

11. Is your supplier offering you regular statistics about your employees’ cloud communications service usage, the types of guests being invited, bandwidth degradation, and explaining them to allow you to make informed decisions moving forward?

12. Have you been offered expert Consultancy services to survey your office and home workers to determine what they think about the tools, policies and procedures in place, and what might work for you/them moving forward? Now is not the time to lose your best staff through neglecting their thoughts and feelings. Workflow consideration is more important than technology.

Here at VideoCentric, we have full time technical consultants and others we bring in part-time when needed. Please ask for a no-obligation, no-cost consultancy call. If nothing else you’ll be better equipped to put plans in place once this crisis starts to ease. All our free discussions are backed by free live demonstrations. Our solutions do not require IT people to make them work. If they did, they wouldn’t be suitable for the majority of your home workers.

If any of these questions made you think about what is next for your organisation, then please do not hesitate to contact VideoCentric, the Video Integration Experts. We’re here to help you prepare for the return to work, but not as we knew it.