Navigating the new normal: 10 tips for connecting council employees

As we all adapt to new ways of working, it is important to offer employees the tools and flexibility to effectively complete their roles without impacting customer services.

Guest blog post from Dell Technologies

In this article Dell Technologies shares 10 tips from a decade-long experience of supporting remote working with our team members.

1. Put employees first
   Identify user types in your organisation and create profiles based on their technology and application
   needs. You can then tailor hardware and software to help them to be more connected and more productive.
2. Conduct a technology audit
   Consider whether the technology currently deployed meets the needs of users. Are the devices being used remotely secure and do they allow collaboration across teams?
3. Consider simplifying IT consumption
   Offering users access to self-service models for technology delivery may save money and ensure a more streamlined way to provide IT. You can also extend this through factory-direct delivery with systems and apps pre-installed and configured.
4. Security must be at the core of your strategy
   Robust policies and technology solutions need to be at the heart of any approach to protect your organisation and employees from security attacks. Think about the people, processes and technologies that need to come together to support your security strategy.
5. Promote secure collaboration
   Focus on tools for collaboration and communication that can be used anywhere, anytime and on any device to make it easy for your people to share and collaborate.
6. Policies need to be defined and adopted across an organisation
   Consider how your organisation aligns remote working to your business strategy and processes. This will ensure workforce flexibility is the foundation for how people work.
7. Enabling leaders
   Business leaders need to be equipped with listening skills to support remote workers and to ensure they feel connected with the business. Actively seeking feedback from your people on what’s working and what isn’t will help your organisation address issues and focus training where it’s needed.
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate
   Consider how to communicate effectively with remote employees. Collaboration cafés and virtual round tables are examples of ways to stay connected, share feedback and build community and well-being.
9. Review office space design and suitability
   Consider how all employees will use office spaces to meet business needs and ensure that spaces are created for collaborative working.
10. Consider how your office population will connect with your remote workers
    Ensure all employees have the tools to communicate irrespective of location. Think about how this might change conference room spaces and technology and how people will collaborate regardless of their physical location.

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