The best technology and the keys to success in Teleworking

Numerous studies have shown that remote working increases employee satisfaction, because of the possibility to reconcile work and family life and can increase productivity by up to 201%. . In addition, it reduces fixed costs for the employer and is more sustainable, because it reduces C02 emissions in transporting employees to work. Conclusion: Telework brings numerous benefits, for employers, employees and society as a whole.

However, due to the crisis in the COVID19 and the need for confinement, in order to reduce contagion, thousands of companies in Spain have been forced to change from a face-to-face working model to a remote working model, in an improvised way, without being prepared, which is generating some adaptation problems.

Next-Step Consultores,like other technology companies, was born with the premise of remote working. At Next-Step all employees telecommute and have flexible working hours, which allows us to perfectly reconcile work and family life. Our performance is measured by the achievement of objectives, the successful completion of projects and customer satisfaction. That is why we would like to share our many years of experience with all our staff teleworking and successfully developing projects, telling you about the key factors and the technological tools that have made this possible.

The 9 keys to successful teleworking:

There are a number of prerequisites for successful remote working:

1. Managers should monitor and define clear objectives: The line manager should set clear and measurable objectives and supervise telework. Workers need to be very clear about the work to be done and the objectives to be achieved.





2. Encouraging responsibility, self-motivation and self-demanding: Employees need to be made aware that it is necessary to be responsible in order to meet these objectives and not to waste time and be distracted in the home environment. Self-motivation and self-demand are needed.





3. Ensure communication with colleagues and superiors: Employees must be able to communicate with their colleagues and superiors whenever necessary, using all possible tools: telephone, email, chats, etc.





4. Set Timetables: Timetables must be established and they must be adhered to. In addition, unless the tasks to be performed allow total flexibility in the timetable, it is advisable to establish a regular timetable for the start and end of the working day, with the corresponding breaks. The former, in order to coincide with the timetable of other colleagues and/or clients. Secondly, because if clear timetables are not set, it is possible that when working from home, the worker does not know when to stop and in the end feels that he/she is connected all day long.





5. Take breaks for rest and exercise. In addition to breakfast and lunch breaks, it is recommended to take a short break of 10 minutes every two hours in front of the computer and use these short breaks for stretching or some exercise, such as a short walk around the house.





6. Create the right work area at home: The work area must be created at home: A quiet, private and silent place that allows concentration. Preferably a room exclusively for this use (office) or set up this space in a bedroom or living room, if there is privacy. In this office or work area it is recommended:

•          Ergonomics and adapted furniture. It is essential to have work furniture: a large desk at the right height, a good ergonomic chair, footrests and preferably an ergonomic keyboard and mouse. It is also essential to adjust the height of the computer screen correctly. If you work with a laptop, it is better to raise the screen at home and connect it to a desktop mouse and keyboard.

•          Hygiene and tidiness. The office or work space must be clean and tidy, especially the computer desk. Particularly now, hygiene measures must be taken to the utmost; it is a good idea to wash your hands with soap before starting to work and to clean the equipment regularly with a disinfectant liquid, especially the keyboard, telephone and mouse.

•          Good lighting. Lighting is fundamental, and if it is natural light, the better. If we put the table near a window and we also put some plants and/or decoration, it will make the room more pleasant.

• 7. Provide computer equipment and Internet connection. Each employee should be provided with the necessary computer equipment and checked to ensure that they have a good Internet connection from home.

• 8. It is recommended to implement a VPN connection (virtual private local area network), where users are connected via the Internet. For security reasons, open access to the company network via the Internet from home is not recommended. Because, even if access is password-protected, it could be detected and hacked. However, VPN allows access to be protected with an encrypted connection, which is much more secure.

• 9. Encourage good relations between colleagues: At this time, due to the state of Alarm, it is necessary to isolate oneself. But, in general terms, for the success of remote work, it is necessary for co-workers and superiors to meet in person, periodically, to share the projects in which each one is immersed, to share knowledge and to carry out some kind of leisure activity, to promote good relations between colleagues. At Next-Step we all meet at least once a month to share experiences and knowledge and enjoy a meal or leisure activity together, which generates the good working atmosphere and camaraderie that we enjoy.

Collaborative technology tools perfect for Teleworking:


MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 AND TEAMS

From the outset, in Next-Step Consultores, We are committed to Microsoft technology and working in the cloud. The collaborative platform Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud-based tool that allows information to be shared from anywhere and on any device. It includes:

• All Microsoft Office applications: Word, Excel, Access, Power Point... In addition, it allows sharing and editing of any document in these applications remotely.




• Outlook Professional Email, with shared calendars.




• OneDrive, for online file storage.




• Microsoft Teams.

What Microsoft Teams is and what it is for

Microsoft Teams is an application used by thousands of companies all over the world for remote work, thanks to its main functionalities for communication: it is used to make calls, videoconferences, chats, etc.

Microsoft Teams is a key tool for successful teleworking. It is free for Office 365 business and education accounts. It can also be purchased outside of the Office suite, but with a licence fee. The good news is that to help businesses in the crisis of the COVID19, Microsoft has decided to offer the Teams tool completely free of charge, with no licensing fees, for six months: Read the full story here

Microsoft Teams has a number of features that distinguish it from other similar applications and make it perfect for remote work from home:

Benefits of Microsoft Teams:

• Provides the perfect environment for interaction and communication between employees and allows information to be centralised and made accessible in a secure way. In terms of communication, it allows:

1. Creating and managing groups




2. Making calls and video calls directly from the tool, private and group meetings




3. Sharing the screen and all kinds of documents and edit them together in real time




4. Connect directly to Outlook and calendar to schedule meetings and calls, etc.

While these functions can also be performed with other tools on the market, there are a number of features and enhancements that make Microsoft Teams the most powerful tool on the market:

• Status messages: Microsoft Teams has a very useful feature, status messages. Each user of the application can define a message of what their status is at that moment: whether or not you are available, if you are away or on holiday, or let them know if you are busy, for example, so that they don't bother you. Other users will be able to see this status when they try to contact you.

• Videoconferencing, including change background functionMicrosoft Teams during videoconferences allows you to centre the image on the user and blur or change the background. This feature is perfect when working from home, to avoid showing something in the background that you don't want to show from your home, or that a member of your family appears by accident.

• Simultaneous translator: Microsoft Teams allows you to translate any chat message into multiple languages, but has also developed another new feature to overcome language barriers: When users speak in a meeting, subtitles can be added instantly in real time.

• Shifts for non-computer users (firstline workers): Microsoft Teams enables shift scheduling for employees who regularly work outside the office (shop assistants, stockers, lorry drivers, health workers, etc.). Employees can view their shifts from their mobile phones, exchange shifts with colleagues, request holidays, leave and sick leave, etc.

• Check-in at work functionalityIf users are part of a shift schedule, they will be able to access the time clock. With this functionality it will be possible to control the working time for remote users and, in addition, to comply with legal requirements. The time clock is available in the Microsoft Teams mobile applications. It allows you to start a shift, stop it at the end of the shift and manage break times during the shift.

• Power App for crisis managementMicrosoft Teams integrates seamlessly with PowerApps, Microsoft's tool for creating Apps quickly and easily with almost no coding. PowerApps has a series of templates for creating a crisis management APP, with the following functionalities: Publish crisis status news, tips, faqs, geolocate employees, etc.

• Corporate news centre: Microsoft Teams also integrates seamlessly with Microsoft SharePoint Online, which allows a modern Microsoft Sharepoint page with news function to be inserted into Microsoft Teams.

• Walkie Talkie functionalityThis functionality consists of a button that the user presses to speak and the audio is immediately sent to the recipient. It also eliminates background noise and works with all operating systems. This feature is new and is currently only available on the mobile APP.

• Employee identification Who is who? Microsoft Teams has a functionality that helps users to get information about other users who are co-workers, but whom they do not know: who they are, what their position is, who their superior is and who they work with in a team, etc.

• Unified task management: A new functionality for unified task management within Microsoft Teams will soon be available (although it is not yet available). This will allow, for example, to see all pending tasks in Office 365, assign tasks to users, with start and due dates, set priorities, include graphs, schedules, etc..

Perfect collaborative tools for Teleworking: MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT

Sharepoint is Microsoft's tool for document management and teamwork. It allows you to create private and secure websites, internal and external, where you can store, organise, edit and share information, from anywhere and on any device. These features make it the perfect platform for creating a corporate Intranet. You can see all the advantages and functionalities of Sharepoint in our article:

Discover Sharepoint, the perfect collaborative platform

Other tools for Teleworking: Join.me, Skype, Hangouts, Zoom...

There are many other useful communication tools for teleworking:

• Join.me https://www.join.me/es It is an ideal platform for online training, videoconferencing and/or meetings, without the need to register, and it allows you to share all kinds of documents and record sessions. At Next-Step we use this tool for the training area, to develop our training programmes. Webinars and Online Courses via streaming: https://next-step.es/formacion-microsoft-power-bi/

• Zoom https://zoom.us/ It is another platform for videoconferencing and/or meetings, without the need to register and which also allows instant messaging. It has become very popular with the coronavirus crisis, because it is an application that many users are using to make video calls with family and friends, taking advantage of the fact that it allows up to 100 participants for free, as opposed to WhatsApp which allows a maximum of four participants in video calls.

• Skype: https://www.skype.com/es/ It is the most popular APP for making calls and video calls, sending direct messages and sharing files/screen with other Skype users. It requires download and/or installation and there is a free version, the private version, and a paid business version.

• Hangouts:https://hangouts.google.com/ It is the multiplatform messaging application created by Google, which allows video conferences, desktop and screen sharing and synchronisation with the entire G Suite: Google Calendar, Gmail, Youtube... It does not require installation, because it is already included in devices with the Chrome browser. With the Enterprise plan, you can record and store video calls and presentations.

• Evernote: https://evernote.com/ It is a very useful tool for workers to get organised, creating and storing notes, information and tasks. It has a free version, Evernote basic. It allows you to take notes and capture and store any information from the Internet and share it quickly and securely.

• Last Pass: https://www.lastpass.com/ Finally, I would like to mention a very useful free tool for storing passwords and being able to retrieve them and share them with third parties, without explicitly showing them. This is important because when we use many online tools for teleworking, for security reasons, they must be different and it is difficult to remember them all. And it may be necessary to share them with a colleague to access our accounts, in case we are on holiday or on leave, for example.

Next-Step are Microsoft Partner and experts in Teleworking Tools

Next-Step is a Microsoft Certified Partner and technology experts: Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Teams, Sharepoint, Power Platform and Power BI. If you need help to create an effective and secure remote working environment, Contact us at and we will be happy to advise you