A sudden shift to working from home has been a shock to many employees and businesses as people struggled to manage childcare and set up appropriate home offices. While some employees have settled into the work-from-home routine, they may still be operating in survival mode. That’s not good for your insurance agency in the long term. One key element that’s often missing is IT support.
How can you give your insurance agency employees support to ensure that you have an efficient and safe workplace?
Finding the Right Devices
The first order of business for those in your insurance jobs is to ensure that they have the right devices to use when working from home. A sudden move to remote work meant that one, two, or more people in a household were suddenly using devices for work and school. These devices may be old and missing out of key software updates that would allow your employees to work more efficiently. According to Business News Daily, “organizations also need to determine if telecommuters can use their own computers or if they need to have dedicated computers for work-related activities.”
Your first plan needs to be to ensure that your employees have devices that can manage the workload and the safety needs of your workplace. Provide IT training and support to download the latest software and protection for those devices.
Working With Home Technology
The internet is an amazing creation that allows people to work from home from around the country and around the world. However, it is not perfect. According to Computer Weekly, “it is one thing to keep servers and applications running, but that counts for nothing if flaky home wireless coverage or intermittent hiccups with the corporate virtual private network causes frustration and loss of productivity.
Consider upgrading your VPN and other support structures for your remote workers so that they have the internet coverage that they need to work well. IT should provide individualized support to help remote workers navigate the frequent challenges they experience here and determine where the problem lies.
Develop Web-Based Support
If people are used to walking into the office of an employee who manages IT support issues, it can be different to have to call or email that employee. Depending on the scale of your workforce, you may need to implement a web-based support plan so that people can log problems and see where they are in the queue for assistance.
A security focus will help your agency avoid problematic data breaches.
Focus on Security
After solving the issue of basic access to devices and consistent internet, your IT team needs to help solve problems while proactively focusing on security. Your agency should have:
- Web browsing guidelines
- Data handling rules
- Training on risks such as phishing
- Plans for frequent security updates
IT support isn’t just reactive. It must be proactive in order to reduce the risks to your insurance agency. The last thing you need is to have one of your remote workers suffer a data breach that impacts your agency negatively. Proactive installation of security and training on current security threats will help your agency weather the times when your employees must work from home.
As you seek out new programs and supports for IT at your insurance agency, connect with us at the American Agents Alliance. We offer product discounts and educational opportunities for your insurance agency. Contact us today to learn more.
