Member Article

Olympic survival tips for businesses

The London Olympics are fast approaching. Andrew Millard, senior director of Marketing, EMEA at Citrix Online Service Division, discusses his top five tips on how businesses can avoid workforce down-time during this period.

Organisations are gearing up in their plans to avoid workforce disruptions during the London Olympics. More than three million passengers travel on the London Underground every day. And, as any commuter knows, disruptions are far from unusual.

Fast forward to this sumemr’s Games, when anticipated visitors are expected to reach the 5.3 million mark and the potential disruptions to the city’s transport infrastructure, and consequently to its businesses, becomes inevitable.

Remote working is becoming the most popular solution being tipped to tackle this potential business headache. Here are five tips to help organisations looking to implement a flexible/remote working strategy:

• Plan now

It is important to establish the desired goals from the new way of working, in order to put in place the most appropriate programme in due time. If the need, objectives and timeline are clearly established early on, then systems can be up and running much quicker.

As with any change that is likely to affect important areas of the organisation, it could be counter-productive to leave the implementation of a remote working solution to the last minute.

• Specialist support

Many businesses will not have considered the need for remote working until now, so may feel they don’t know where to start. However, there are specialist providers who are able to offer support throughout the transition. By using bespoke hosted solutions, easy-to-use technologies can be implemented rapidly with best practice in mind.

These solutions also tend to be very cost effective as there is little up-front investment and you only pay for what you require. When up and running, collaboration software enables the workforce to attend online meetings through video conferencing, participate in training sessions remotely and access the corporate network from any location securely.

• Think long-term

A workforce that’s supported by remote working solutions can carry on ‘business-as-usual’ and will be far more productive than one that’s stuck elbow-to-elbow on a delayed train. And once a remote working solution is in place, should unforeseen circumstances arise, an organisation can call on those resources immediately knowing that they work in practice.

Whether it is attending a virtual meeting, training session or accessing vital files securely a remote working solution can ensure continuity and a ‘business-as-usual’ approach is maintained, even if staff can’t physically make it into the office.

• Get the business on board

Not all employees will feel positive about an operational change such as remote working. There will still be new systems and ways of working to get used to and this may be daunting for some staff. However, by planning the strategy early on and giving staff time to adjust, new approaches will be better received. Buy-in can also be more easily achieved by emphasising the benefits to the individual, like reduced business travel time and cost, and improved work-life balance.

• Work with it

New solutions and strategies can take time to get used to, but by integrating them into everyday working, the transition can be much smoother. Planning ahead for workforce interruptions, whether in the case of bad weather or to avoid transport problems such as tube strikes, remote working solutions will ensure better business continuity and productivity.

Taking simple steps now ensures that productivity is maintained and valuable time isn’t wasted in a crisis by implementing rushed strategies at the last minute. By adopting this approach organisations can take control of what, in the past, would have been an unpredictable situation. Continuity, workforce productivity and ultimately the needs of the business can therefore be met, more effectively.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Andrew Millard .