Business Continuity Tips for Coronavirus
With the spread of Coronavirus, the health and safety of your employees are paramount.
Therefore, its vital that you have a business continuity plan and your own tips for coronavirus in place – not only for your employee’s welfare but your clients too.
What better way to ensure you’ve covered all bases that by speaking to IT experts?
That’s why we’ve invited Jonathan Edwards for Integral and our very own Liam Malyn to share some helpful tips for Coronavirus with you so that you have the tools to put preventative measures in place.
Password Protection
“This is a good time to review your password policies.”
By this, Jonathan is referring to multi-factor authentication, including characters and upper and lowercase.
With employees working outside of the ‘safe-haven’ that is the office, you must be as secure as possible.
Assess Your Team
Ok so you’re password-protected, next you need to audit who needs to work from home and what IT services they need to do their job.
“You should be asking yourself how are they going to access all of their applications and data remotely?”
Is Your Network Server-Based?
If you still have a server-based network in your office, then Jonathan explains “you should have a reliable and robust VPN ( Virtual private network) already in place for remote access.”
This should have two-factor authentication enabled for additional security.
What You Need to Know About Using VPN
Jonathan advises “Dependent on what applications and files you are using.”
In some cases, “using a VPN can be slower than working in the normal office environment. Some of your business applications might not work very well over a VPN.”
Therefore, bear this in mind when working remotely.
Jonathan went on to say: “I recommend checking your office internet bandwidth and whether it allows for lots more users using the VPN.”
Using Devices
Many businesses are reliant on various forms of technology to keep it running smoothly.
It is important to ensure these are safe to be used remotely.
In these scenarios, Jonathan says: “My advice is to provide a company-owned device for people to work on with sufficient business security software.”
Although there is a temptation to let people use their home computers to work on, as Jonathan explains, “you can’t verify the security of these devices. If people have to work on personal devices, get IT to check them first.”
Furthermore, “if people are carrying portable devices around then they should be encrypted using BitLocker or another encryption product. Portable devices can get lost and the data can become compromised.”
Office 365
“If Office 365 is used in the business (which is the case for the majority of businesses) then ensure two-factor authentication is enabled.”
This makes it more secure when people are logging in over the web.
Home Internet
In Jonathan’s professional opinion: “Home internet is fine, connections need a code to connect to the Wi-Fi and you generally know who is using your home internet. Plus, if you are connecting to a VPN, the security is on the VPN side.”
What About Speech Technology?
Ok, so you’ve got the basics covered. But if you’re using speech recognition or digital dictation solutions, you probably have a few queries surrounding these too.
We roped in the help of our Client Account Manager, Liam Malyn, to bust a few myths.
Is Cloud Best?
One of the advantages of cloud software is the ability to use it wherever, whenever – that goes the same for your speech technology solutions.
You will able to be able to access your software remotely via the VPN network and it will not need to be installed again on your home PC.
According to Liam: “If you’re on existing cloud versions, you have nothing to worry about, your speech technology solution will work seamlessly and as normal when used remotely.”
In short, Liam explains: “Using these versions means that your typists will still have access to the system from home if they’re in isolation.”
In addition, “fee earners can still be using the Mobile Apps to send dictation from home or use speech recognition from the comfort of their own home.”
What If I’m Not on a Cloud Version?
If you’re on an on-premise version of speech technology software, you will still be able to access it via the VPN remote connection.
Our tech expert assures all speech recognition and digital dictation users: “Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean that non-cloud versions won’t work, because they will!”
Dragon Professional Individual, Dragon Professional Group, SpeechExec and on-premise Winscribe can still be used remotely, like other desktop applications, via VPN.
However, if you don’t have a VPN and you’re using a different device to your work one then the software will need to be re-installed.
As always, we’re more than happy to assist with that in order to facilitate you working remotely.
“The bottom line is that all of these solutions are fully encrypted and your data is 100% protected – no matter where you send it from.”
Are your staff furloughed?
If you’ve had to make the businesses decision to furlough some of your staff, check out our tips on surviving furlough, from Courtney, who has just returned from her furlough leave!
Hopefully, these tips for coronavirus management within a business are beneficial and help you to continue to provide the same high standard of customer service that your clients expect.
If you have any questions surrounding your speech recognition or digital dictation solutions, please get in touch, we’re happy to help.
