Computerware Blog

Lots of companies are going to remote or hybrid work strategies, making it a challenge to stay engaged with some or all of their employees. Working in the same location, it is much easier for a company to build some type of office culture. In this month’s newsletter, we’ll give you a few tips on how to build a company culture when you lean on remote teams. 

Remote work is a more popular option than ever, considering how businesses have needed to adapt, but that isn’t to say that this option hasn’t experienced some challenges. One major drawback has been the impact that the situation at hand has had on the cumulative mental health of your team. There is some cognitive dissonance associated with working together while separating—largely because the casual conversations that generally come with working together have been lost.

Shadow IT, despite its melodramatic name, is nothing to be trifled with. Shadow IT is the term given to rogue technology and software being installed in your business without being reviewed or approved by IT. It has always given in-house operations difficulties, and remote work has made it an even bigger problem than before.

Each day, the news surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic gets closer and closer to home, and with new restrictions being levied each day, businesses are some of the hardest hit organizations. Today, we will discuss how file sync and sharing platforms can help your business immensely as this situation plays out.

With mobile devices being as popular as they are, so ingrained into modern culture, the fact of the matter is that your employees are going to have them in the workplace. They may even want to use them in a work capacity. This can provide a few benefits to a business, as long as it is managed properly. A carefully-crafted mobile device policy can help accomplish this.

As technology has advanced, we’ve reached the point where work can easily be accomplished outside of the office environment. In fact, just over half of all employees around the world work from home at least one day each week. This only makes sense, as there are a few very appealing benefits to remote work… including for the employer.

There was a time when finding a mobile device for your business meant choosing the best laptop. Thanks to all the new mobile devices hitting the market, you now have smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and more to choose from. You can know which device is right for your business by reviewing these five points when doing your shopping.

There's a lot of buzz floating around about "The death of the PC." This is due to the growing popularity of mobile devices and the sluggish sales of PCs. Will the PC ever die, or are we just in a time of transition? For your business, it's all a matter of perspective and your computing needs.

Cloud computing can provide your employees with the option to work from home. Working from home has been shown to increase both employee satisfaction and productivity and it's good for the environment by saving on commuting. Is working from home right for your business?

One of the hottest trends in business technology is having employees bring in their personal devices to the office for work purposes. This trend is commonly referred to as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), and before you blindly follow the trend and allow BYOD for your business, you should first weigh the benefits against the risks.

One of the biggest trends in the modern office is employees bringing their own personal devices to work (BYOD). Many businesses are making changes to their IT infrastructure to make room for BYOD. With BYOD growing in popularity, it's appropriate for businesses to ask where this trend is heading. What will a fully evolved BYOD office of the future look like?

The use of mobile technology has been launching businesses into a new realm of competition. By enabling business owners and their employees to work from anywhere they need, mobile technology has the potential to dramatically increase the productivity of your business. Before purchasing new devices, however, you'll want to consider these four specifications in relation to your business.

After many nights of working late and putting your all into your business, it's finally reached a point of being profitable and your team works really well with one another. Some employees have been with you for years and really know their way around the business, which makes them key players in your company. What do you do when life throws a wrench at them and they have no choice but to move thousands of miles away?

When it comes to working remotely from home, the reviews are mixed. On one hand, you have employees that enjoy the freedom of working in their pajamas. On the other hand, some employers don't like having their team spread out because it takes away from company culture. Taking advantage of a webcam is a great solution that may satisfy both parties.

By taking advantage of a video conferencing solution like Skype, remote workers, their employers, and other co-workers can have some semblance of face time. Seeing a person's facial expressions and body language communicates a lot more than just audio and instant messaging. By adding a visual element to team communication, you can see how someone really feels about a project, and it will be easier to avoid the miscommunication of reading false emotions and opinions into e-mails.

Adding a webcam to the remote working experience is not a radical suggestion, although, to make webcams work best for remote workers, it may be in your best interest to use webcams in the radical way of always having them on. Keeping your Skype app open throughout the entire workday will take up extra computer resources, but it may be the missing link to making telecommuting work.

One way that an always-on webcam can help is to give employers a better sense that their employees are standing by. In order for the remote workplace to be successful, the employer has to have a high level of trust that their employees are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Earlier this year, the reputation of telecommuting took a hit as Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer discovered that several of her employees were abusing the privilege of working remotely by not being honest about their use of company time. If Mayer would have had the ability to check on every member of her remote team by glancing at Skype, then perhaps her team would be more motivated to be honest.

A webcam monitoring a remote session would also encourage employees to clean up and dress appropriately before logging on to their computer. Dressing up to do office work from home has been proven to be motivating, increase productivity, and it's a best practice, just in case the remote employee receives a message from work that requires an urgent trip to the office. Employees may be bummed out about losing the ability to work in their pajamas, but keep in mind that it's easy to angle the webcam so that only the waste up is viewable.

Working remotely will be unable to completely capture every communication intricacy that makes face-to-face interaction in the office valuable, but taking full advantage of Skype may be the next best thing. For assistance with setting up your network so that your employees can enjoy working from home, along with saving the expense of commuting and travel time, call Computerware at (703) 821-8200.

With our Desktop Virtualization solution, you can have employees remotely access your company's network from anywhere, and we can streamline videoconferencing for the entire office with our affordable VoIP solution. Call Computerware and talk to us about your company's specific communication needs so that we can build you the best telecommuting package for your remote team!

Voice over Internet Protocol is proving to be a popular alternative to traditional phone systems. Many businesses making the switch and discovering major savings compared to their long distance phone bills. We are seeing many businesses switching to VoIP and experiencing saving while discovering new communication features that will enhance their professional image.

It seems like everybody owns a cellphone. This might actually be the case; 175 million cellphones were sold last year in the U.S. alone. With the proliferation of cellphones in pockets, comes more cellphones being picked from pockets. Cellphone theft is on the rise, accounting for 1/3 of all thefts in the US. What's being done to stop cellphone theft?

If you are a user of the popular Google Reader, then you have by now received the memo from Google about their plans to discontinue this service on July 1, 2013. Google’s reasoning for jettisoning their reader is so they can focus on fewer products. What’s a Google Reader user to do? Feedly is a great alternative that’s worth checking out.

Commuting to work can be a rather draining experience, and not just on your budget. Research from Umeå University in Sweden has shown that computing can also be draining to your health. Commuters have been found to die younger than people who live close to their job. Telecommuting provides a great solution that can extend the lives of your employees.

We are counting down to 2013, but before we close the books on 2012, let us take a painful-yet-entertaining look back at the top 5 technology fails from 2012. Hopefully, history will not repeat itself and the tech industry will learn from its 2012 flops and have less missteps in 2013--yeah right!

Like dandelions blooming in springtime, QR codes seem to be popping up everywhere. In fact, QR codes can even be found on flower pot labels! QR codes are widely used to communicate product information and direct smartphone users directly to a company's website, but QR codes have more uses than marketing. Here are three QR code secrets that can make sharing data easy.