WFH by ADVANTUM

Working from home:

HARDWARE, SOFTWARE AND HUMAN IMPERATIVES

The “new normal” isn’t so new anymore. Lifestyles and work styles are adapting to Covid-19 and the more flexible and digitalized companies are leading the way in surmounting the challenges and grasping the opportunities arising from the pandemic. Working from home (WFH) has become integral to the new way of doing business because it offers a variety of benefits to remote employees and their employers, not least of which are health related.

Businesses need to plan for this new work arrangement, and Advantum, which provides specialized information and communication technology (ICT) services for shipping interests in the Caribbean, has been assisting several companies in preparing to work from home. Robert Sinclair, Advantum’s network team lead, has much experience in this area especially with regard to web-based applications that make the transition seamless, coupled with the continuity offered by its support desk. He offers some useful advice related to the hardware, software and human requirements of this new modus operandi.

Wfh policy guidelines

“To begin with,” Robert says, “businesses looking to introduce a work-from-home program should create specific guidelines to ensure all employees understand what is required from them when they work remotely.” He states that the key elements of a work from home policy, which should be shared with the entire staff, include:

• Sourcing appropriate technology: Computer, cell phone, Wi-Fi and access to internal networks are all tools that employees need for WFH.
• Using only secure connections: Remote workers should have a secured Wi-Fi network and work with a trusted virtual private network (VPN). The VPN serves as a buffer between the Wi-Fi connection and your mobile device or laptop. Any transmitted data is then encrypted to protect it from tampering and interception.
• Implementing a vibrant communications programs: Stay in touch with employees who work from home via Teams, Skype, Zoom, Slack and other messaging services. At times, remote workers can feel isolated from the rest of the team, so it is important to keep in contact with them via phone, email, messaging, or video conference.
• Setting clear objectives in your work from home policy: Create a WFH policy with your specific expectations of the program. The policy would include instructions for an employee’s daily work schedule, your company’s overtime policy, description of a dedicated workspace, instructions for reporting personal injury and damage to company equipment, and protection of proprietary company information.
• Evaluating the work-from-home program: If you are implementing a work-from-home policy, take the time to evaluate its effectiveness after at least two months and adjust the program based on your findings.
• Trusting your employees: One of the most crucial elements of a work-from-home policy is that employers need to have trust in their employees to get their jobs done when they are not working onsite.

WFH Safety Risks

Sinclair also advises that there are safety risks involved in WFH that should never be overlooked. Among these, he highlights cybersecurity, ergonomics and workspace configuration and offers the following advice:

• Cybersecurity risks: If an employee is not using a secured Wi-Fi or VPN, working from home can pose a cybersecurity risk because their computer could be open to a cyber-attack. Employees should also be aware of the physical security of their electronic devices. They should keep their laptops to themselves, utilize passwords, and securely store them when they are not in use.
• Ergonomically unfriendly furniture and work areas: The same chair you sit in to enjoy meals at the dinner table may not be the best for working at the computer and many WFH spaces are not ergonomically friendly. “Muscular, joint and nerve challenges can start with disregard for ergonomics,” Sinclair warns, adding that awkward home workspaces can also lead to injury risks. He says special care must be taken to ensure that cables, power strips and extension cords are so positioned that they cannot hinder movement of the employee and other family members.

Robert advises that “To maintain efficiency, the WFH employee should find a dedicated workspace where they can focus on their work with minimal distractions.” He recommends that in cases of employees with disabilities, the home workspace should be inspected to make sure it is free from any hazards, including fire and ventilation issues, slipping and falling dangers and other daily risk factors.

WFH Experience

Before the pandemic, Advantum had already implemented WFH, and Kay Wilson Kelly, the company’s operations manager/project lead shares its experience as follows:

“As an Information Technology Company, we too work from home. In January 2019, Advantum ventured into this realm with much success in improved productivity from the developers, devOps and business analysts. In March 2020, when Jamaica announced work from home, Advantum was already there.

“The use of Microsoft Teams has greatly assisted in our collaboration with one another, while being physically distanced. The chat rooms come alive at start of day (literally before the typical 8:30 a.m. hour) with the “good morning” of the team lead followed by a cascading set of acknowledgements from team members. The chat remains vibrant, sometimes till late at night. Sessions are in-depth…but with typical developer style is intermittently infused with a buzz of laughter as a break to the stress of the rigors of software development.

“The Microsoft Teams avenue facilitates knowledge sharing, whiteboard demonstrations, and channels that allows for dispatch of notifications for different activities. These may include alerts for code deploys and mergers to the main development environment. The Team lead and the DevOps team are able to manage workloads by reviewing commit alerts and pull requests.

“Business Analysts become intertwined in the process by submitting meeting requests for grooming sessions in which the team interrogates one another to understand business processes and finally formulate a framework for development. Also, our consultants are not left out of the process and they too get included in specific chats tailored for their communication.

“A recent implementation of Azure Devops, a tool which can be integrated with Microsoft teams, is used to manage our software development cycle. With the use of Kanban Boards and the writing of epics, features and stories, Team Leads can assign and monitor development tasks.  Quality assurance can then be notified to complete testing and approve for deploy to our clients.”

Shipping and logistics companies are on the leading edge of the WFH paradigm, and this way of doing business does not mean loss of efficiency and customer satisfaction. What it does require, however, is systematic planning, thoughtful implementation and constant monitoring. The Advantum team’s suggestions can help us do it right.