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Have you already started to let employees work outside of your offices? Sure Sales have been doing it forever, right? But what about the jobs that have not traditionally been done somewhere else. In today’s hyper-connected world it is almost impossible for business not to be working from everywhere, but the question is you covering your corporate rear-end?

Many companies have just let remote work happen without planning or forethought, and some have put together some standard teleworking forms that employees signed and quickly forget about. With about 3.4 million people in the USA alone working remotely that employees and you can double it if you include freelancers you need to have a well throughout a set of policies and tools to assure your business is covered.  We have been helping businesses plan, execute and thrive in a remote workforce no matter where their team is in the world.

What is your company’s Remote Work like? Please share with us here in the comments section below.

Mobile from Road to Home

For many people traveling and working is just part of the norm. Some of us are occasional travelers, and others are always moving as part of their work.  In the normal major metro areas, the wireless connection is excellent, but once you start to travel to outside these telecommunication bubbles, then things get less dependable.

Our regular mobile readers know we have been focused on how to be productive while on the road, but we have not been covering the unique needs of those who work remotely from home. It was not our intent to exclude them, but we have been over the years more focused on trying to help the professional who had to travel or was outside of their office for the majority of their workday. Maybe that because that where we came from and had the most experience to help.

But today most of our team members work remotely, and as a team, we have gone through some challenges that remote workers face. So moving forward we will be including more articles, postings, and best practices focused on remote worker’s needs.

We want to get your comments on what are your biggest pains in working as a remote employee. Please leave your comments below

The single biggest difference between a desktop and laptop computer is portability.  This fact alone means you have to take extra steps to protect your laptop from the unscrupulous. I have put together a checklist for you to make you take the basic precautions in securing your laptop for your travels.

Before you leave and something that you should have done already

1. Backing up – Before you even leave your office make sure to back-up all your data files so just in case you something bad happens you will always have copies of them.
2. What’s the Password? – Make sure that you have password protection enabled on your laptop.
3. Strong Enough? – May sure the password is strong one mix up some letters and numbers and throw in an odd car or two.
4. Good Screening – Set your screen saver to a shorter time period before it starts (make sure to check the box next to the minutes that says on resume password protect.
5. Blocked the entrances – Make sure you have a firewall enabled.
6. Spy Stuff – If you have very important documents encrypting the file or folder is a must.
7. Make sure your antivirus software is up to date and running properly.
8. Use an anti-malware software to help protect yourself.
9. If your laptop has a fingerprint reader, webcam with facial recognition software or other types of built-in security feature make sure they are enabled.
10. Multiple Personalities – If you are the only one that uses your computer and you do not have an IT guy who has set the user rights then you are the administrator of your laptop and can do anything.  Consider creating another user say “first name” with limited right restricting the access to the specific program and adding of any new programs.  That way if you leave your computer the bad guys cannot install a malice program.
11. Wi-Fi – Don’t say anything that you would not want everyone to know.  Public (i.e. free) Wi-Fi is great for accessing the web but unless you are using a VPN your communications are open for anyone to sniff out and use. So do not do your online banking or buy something with a credit card transaction unless you want to help strangers live large in Hollywood.
12. Keep it in sight – No matter want else you do you have to keep physical possession of your laptop or else everything only help may it hard for the bad guys to get your data.

Back-up – So I am going to assume that you did buy an external disk drive to backup weekly like I told you in my article for the newbie.  This is by far the easiest way to back up your laptop and again make backing up a habit like before you go to dinner or to workout or even easier schedule it for a time you normally would be away from your laptop.

Remote Work – On The Road Again

Remoteness, not all remote work is the same, and not all remote worker work the same.  To some of us remote means not in the office due to travel to others it is about not having to go to the office. Traveling creates its own set of problems that make being connected and being on the road a challenge. Yes, if you are working in major cities with great mobile and wifi services the hassles are low but as soon as you are working in the rest of the world problems keep popping up for remote worker and staying connected.

WiFi is a staple of modern business life, and plenty of establishments offer free wifi, but the problem of late is too many people are on them which means slow or poor performance at many places and the question of how secure your connection is always a problem.

Mobile connections are good when at 4LTE but become much slower at 3G level.