COVID-19 Working at Home: Techie Considerations

As businesses and governments implement their COVID-19 response plans, technology teams around the world have been ensuring IT systems are ready for mass work at home so that social distancing is implemented. A recent article in the Washington Post shows that moderate to extensive distancing can significantly reduce contagion.

The most critical factor in handling COVID-19 is the preservation of human life, particularly for those in the at-risk demographics. The economic impact of COVID-19 is already playing out in the stock markets, with record lows seen on March 13th. Specific industries are bearing the brunt of this including, airlines, tourism and, related industries; the economic toll will be felt for months and years to come.

Governments and businesses must ensure the safety of their people as a number one priority but also attempt to continue delivering services, without risk to their staff, to lessen the economic impact. IT teams globally play a vital role in keeping people and their organization’s productivity safe through the implementation of effective remote working tools. 

The Fireminds team over the past few years has grown to 100+ staff, servicing corporate and enterprise customers in North America, Caribbean and, LATAM. Our team is in multiple locations including Bermuda, Cayman, USVI, Guyana, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Little Rock, Denver, Halifax, Eastern Europe and London. On the one hand the geographical diversity of our team ensures that we do not have a concentration risk, still our spread-out nature means some of our staff are already in zones affected by COVID-19 and are taking isolation measures already.

Testing Work at Home

As an organization, many of our team are already working at home over the past week and leveraging our remote working tools extensively. In addition, the Fireminds Bermuda team conducted a full business continuity exercise last week to test remote working for all staff in our headquarters location. As a SOC2 certified organization, we conduct regular BCP tests, with the usual scenarios such as hurricane or fires, but this is the first time we have conducted a BCP test for contagion. Needless to say, as a well-practiced organization, our BCP test went smoothly with no impact on productivity and our risk manager was happy with the results, ensuring Fireminds is ready to handle the 24x7 needs of its customers in any event.

Fireminds utilizes its own cloud offerings to run the business, we in essence, “eat our own pasta” and I wanted to walk you through some of the remote tools that you can leverage for your business too. Existing Fireminds customers already have full remote working capability and I was happy to hear from a few customers who already tested this reported that all went smoothly

Soft Phone

One of my favorite remote working tools is my 3CX soft phone. Fireminds and its customers use 3CX for a PBX solution. As a 3CX Titanium partner, we have rolled more PBXs than I count and the feature of 3CX have been well-liked by our team and customers.

I cut the cord some time ago and utilize my iPad Pro with 3CX soft phone as my primary telephone tool. My extension and direct line ring on my iPad Pro, iPhone 11 and laptop, which means my direct line follows me wherever I am in the world and have an internet connection.

This has been particularly useful for remote working recently as our team was able to efficiently work from home, and customers were not aware when dialing our direct lines, that we were at home, which meant our productivity and communication with our customers were unaffected.

Already we have had a few customers spin up 3CX phone systems recently to make their remote working easier. Because our parent company ATN owns five telecom companies:

OneComm – Bermuda

Logic – Cayman

Viya – USVI

GTT – Guyana

CommNet – USA

Our voice infrastructure is tapped directly into SIP lines, and we can spin up customers quickly across our markets.

Microsoft Teams & Office 365

Another favorite of mine and foundational productivity tool for Fireminds and our customers is Microsoft Teams. We moved to Teams over a year ago, and it sits in the middle of our collaboration workstyle, everything from coordinating IT Operations, client documentation, projects, and even fun things such as the company chat group where we share funny pictures.

We utilize video conferencing in Microsoft Teams for all meetings internally and externally, so the shift to remote working has been seamless. I highly recommend moving to Microsoft Teams not only for your organization’s immediate work at home needs but as a critical component of collaboration in your company moving forward.

Last year Microsoft Teams had a substantial positive impact on our IT Operations teams as they shifted away from WhatsApp chat groups into Teams chat groups. It allowed for linking to internal files, we turned on conference call recordings with transcripts, and it kept our CISO happy because all information was being contained and protected within the organization. It became even more useful last summer when we expanded our team by another 27 people, allowing them to jump right into the collaboration space and come up to speed very quickly.

WhatsApp

On the topic of WhatsApp, I like the app for social purposes, and I use it heavily with my friends, but I don’t think it is a tool that should be used in mature enterprises because it doesn’t provide the ability to collaborate with files, channel chats, group conference, protect data or include customers. So, as you consider the remote tools you utilize in your work at home program, I discourage you from using WhatsApp other than for casual interactions.

Coming back to Microsoft Teams, we recently on-boarded a well-established marketing company as a Fireminds customer and right after we implemented 3CX we moved them to Microsoft Teams which has allowed them to collaborate far more effectively, but now has positioned them to execute work at home next week with minimal issues. This client still has a file server on-premise to handle client projects, so we have tasked one of our automation engineers to write a script to synchronize the on-premise file server with OneDrive available in Microsoft Teams, creating a remote working solution very quickly. Teams to the rescue!

Teams Telephone Features

Also, we have implemented direct lines in Microsoft Teams, meaning that customers can call us directly via phone right into Teams, another great tool to use during work at home. Below is an example of where we have implemented Teams DID (Direct Inward Dialing) lines with our sibling company OneComm.

Using Video

Another critical aspect to consider with Microsoft Teams and remote working is keeping genuine human interaction through video conference. So much information is conveyed via facial expressions that I always keep the camera on during meetings so people can see me and have more of a human connection. I think this will become even more important to leverage video conferencing and increase the human connection as we work at home more in the coming weeks.

On a lighter note, I think with school closures and work at home with video conference will also provide for some much-needed comical moments. Recently I was working at home and video conferencing with one of my Board members; during the call, my 5-year-old walked up to my home office desk, kissed me and asked for some food. My Board member had a good chuckle, as that is not a regular occurrence in our daily video calls!

WebEx Video Conferencing

Our parent company (NASDAQ:ATNI) has 1600 employees and utilizes WebEx extensively across all locations. My personal preference is Microsoft Teams because it is so integrated to Office 365, but I highly recommend WebEx if you’re looking for another recommendation on a video conference and collaboration tool.

One little feature I like with WebEx, particularly for work at home, is the background selector. In the WebEx client, you can select a custom background from your camera roll so that your colleagues and clients don’t see your house. It is also a nice touch if you want to switch up backgrounds on different meetings, just to spice things up.

Both Microsoft Teams and WebEx video conferencing adjust well to varying network conditions, and I even used on LTE while traveling. These are great options for video conferencing, plus Microsoft Teams now has a free trial underway.

 Desktop as a Service / Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Fireminds operates seven data centers in Bermuda, Cayman, Halifax, Guyana, Atlanta, Miami, and Denver, which act as the backbone of our private cloud infrastructure for clients. We also host workloads in Azure and AWS and utilize SD-WAN to interconnect our private and public cloud infrastructure.

Many of our clients utilize our Citrix DaaS product to access their private cloud from anywhere in the world securely. As previously mentioned in this article, all Fireminds DaaS clients had a seamless transition to work at home because our cloud offering is geared for remote access.

Fireminds has added additional bandwidth in data centers to accommodate more clients working from home, instead of leveraging their direct or MPLS connections to our cloud environments. We’ve seen other companies increasing their corporate internet bandwidth to accommodate the increased remote traffic via VDI or VPN. We have also seen companies buy more servers and VDI licensing from us recently.

 Securing Remote Workers

The question of security has been a big part of the discussion with clients as the workplace extends to people’s homes. Fireminds clients can leverage MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) such as AuthAnvil, Microsoft 365 MFA, and Okta. Fireminds enforces MFA for any clients accessing cloud from outside the office network, ensuring security during mass remote working. Also, because VDI / DaaS keeps the data in the data center, it provides extra levels of assurance that data isn’t leaking onto employee’s home computers.

Many companies are allowing employees to use their own home devices but accessing via VPN, which potentially exposes the company network to threats from home devices. Remembering that many home networks are not secure or teenage children may compromise the home network with things like gaming servers, a threat that could extend into the corporate network. Utilizing a VDI approach to remote working is optimal because it keeps a perimeter between the home and corporate network. In my opinion, VPN for remote access should only be permitted on company-provided devices.

VDI Network Optimization

Another benefit of VDI solutions is its ability to optimize the use of the network. Many home networks are not well managed, so available bandwidth may not be perfect for remote access to work networks. Solutions like Citrix and VMware Horizon adapt to poor network conditions and allow the user to keep working; also remote desktop solutions typically don’t consume more than 2MB which is much lighter weight than VPN or Office 365 solutions which can waste a lot of bandwidth, particularly when you’re downloading or uploading files.

Many organizations still have the majority of their infrastructure on-premise, so scaling up server environments is a little harder because they have to order, ship, install, configure and bring online physical servers (even if you’re using VMware or HyperV), so these organizations simply can’t respond fast enough to the escalation from COVID-19. This is an excellent example of why I tell customers why they need to be in a cloud environment, either Fireminds private cloud or public clouds like Azure because it gives you the ability to scale up quickly and respond to the demands of the organization.

Fireminds engineering team recently upgraded server and storage capacity in our data centers to meet the growing demands of our expanding customer base, but for COVID-19 this has ensured we have enough capacity on spinning reserve to add new customers who require VDI solutions now.

Citrix Cloud & Horizon in Azure

Also, we have some customers who are leveraging Citrix Cloud or VMware Horizon in Azure to host the front-end virtual desktop infrastructure in public cloud, removing the need for sufficient on-premise hardware and allowing companies to scale up or down virtual desktop capacity on the fly.

Fireminds has set up in both Citrix Cloud and Horizon in Azure to give customer options depending on their needs. Our larger and US-based customers are leveraging the full benefits of VDI in public clouds to enable remote workers quickly.

Public Cloud: Azure

Also, we have had customers simply spinning up additional virtual machines in Azure and using public clouds to serve up applications to remote workers, adding capacity on-demand to ensure teams are productive. As a Microsoft CSP, we have been turning up new tenants within the day for customers to meet their needs, again leveraging the elasticity benefits of cloud to meet these demands.

VPN with Fortinet

Fireminds is a Fortinet reseller and utilizes Fortinet at the core of its data center networks. While I’ve stated earlier in this article, my preference for VDI for remote workers, VPN using company devices is still a reliable option for companies who are expanding their work at home programs.

VPN with Fortinet can be clientless, and this has made the rollout of VPN for specific clients a lot less effort than if we had to install clients on devices as we quickly try to get the devices and staff out the door.

I strongly recommend that if you’re using VPN for remote workers that it is only done on company provided and secure devices to ensure you don’t bring new threats into the corporate network.

Working at Home

We have seen a spike in hardware sales in the past week, with clients buying new laptops and screens to kit out their staff with everything they need for work at home. Many companies still have desktops for their staff, so the prospect of sending staff home is a little harder because they have to pack up the desktop and take it home.

For those companies still running desktops on the network, a few things to bear in mind are:

Sending Desktops Home

Does the desktop have wifi? Not all home networks have a lot of hard-wired connections in a convenient location, so some customers have purchased USB wifi adapters to allow staff to use their work PCs on home wifi.

Work at home has increased the number of support tickets coming into the help desk, helping non-technical staff hook into their home networks. Also, I don’t recommend sending your IT team to staff homes, and you will want to limit exposure for your front-line staff, more on this later in the article.

Profile Caching

Many desktops are joined to Active Directory, so you have to ensure the profile is cached before you send the desktop home, or the staff member won’t be able to authenticate in offline mode and get into their desktop. In addition, you can configure the PC to connect to VPN first, allowing it access to Active Directory and then logging in.

Home Internet

I jokingly said to my team that I test work from home every day at 5:30 am, because after I my alarm goes off, and I get the first coffee in me, I start working before the sun comes up. But my home office is well established with two 27inch displays, 3CX extension on my iPad, and a 300MB home internet connection from OneComm, my local ISP (Internet Service Provider). Because OneComm is Fireminds’ sibling company, I know their home internet infrastructure is excellent, so I’ve never had issues at my home office. But not everyone has a 300MB connection at home or a rock-solid internet provider.

Wherever you are in the world, you have to keep in mind that home internet is not designed to be corporate-grade because most people aren’t home during the day and only use it in the evening to surf the web and watch Netflix. To keep pricing affordable, most home ISPs aggregate bandwidth to an area (i.e. 500 users per node) and rely on the fact that not everyone in that neighborhood is going to demand the bandwidth at the same time. Quality ISPs will keep a low headcount per node, ensuring high-quality internet for their customers, but other ISPs oversubscribe the network more, which means during high demand times, the quality of the internet to homes drops.

With so many people working at home in the coming weeks, there will be unprecedented demand on home internet providers, which are designed for users who do web surfing, video streaming, and occasional downloads. Now the work profile will change to more onerous network demands because of VPNs and video conferencing, putting a strain on these residential networks, coupled with unmanaged home networks there could be issues that you should plan for.

Many companies have already conducted work at-home tests to ensure their own systems can take the load, but also to inventory each employees’ work at home capacity and experience. When Fireminds conducted its test last week, we had one employee whose home internet is on a competitor’s network, which apparently couldn’t take the load, and that employee was offline for an hour. We had that employee pair their phone, and we used the LTE network as a backup.

These are things we have to consider when sending home so many staff to work remotely.

Call Centers

In our group, we have 100’s of call center staff who are critical to taking care of our customers. Since call centers have high headcounts, they are one of the first areas of human density that companies have to implement social distancing and configure these staff to handle their roles from home.

For our clients with large call centers, they typically use big-box products like Mitel or Avaya phone systems, which both have soft phone capability, and we’ve been busy configuring soft phones for these call center staff so they can work from home.

We also have clients who leverage ZenDesk for help desk and call center management, and the built-in soft phones in the ZenDesk subscriptions are a great and easy way to scale up work at home call center staff quickly.

As I alluded to earlier in the article, the combination of increased workload on IT staff who are part of COVID-19 response plans, the extra requests coming from external and internal customers puts our call center staff front and center. Also, for those customers who can’t enable direct lines for staff working at home, then a lot of call volume will come through the main line of companies and likely to call center staff, who will be even busier as they act as switchboard operators. They will be handling a lot more calls and act as an essential funnel for important requests, so make sure you thank your call center staff, they have a busy few weeks ahead of them!

Remote Support

A lot of Fireminds customers enjoy on-site support options, which allows us to foster great relationships with our customers and their staff. But with social distancing being implemented, we have advised our field technicians to try remote resolution of issues and only going on-site as a last resort. This will be particularly difficult as more non-technical users are sent home and need help trying to configure unmanaged home networks.

In addition to moving to a remote support model, Fireminds field technicians have been issued with rubber gloves and hand sanitizer to utilize, they are also observing best practices like no touching and greeting clients with foot bumps. Admittedly I am most concerned with our field technicians who are going into multiple unknown environments, and in my quest to protect our people, this will be an area I watch carefully.

The majority of our managed services clients already have Fireminds RMM (Remote Management & Monitoring) agents on their desktops, laptops, and servers, and we can handle 95% of normal IT requests remotely. I suspect this is an area of growth that we will see as organizations fully understand the benefits and importance of remote managed services, particularly in the circumstances like COVID-19 response.

Mental Health

While the majority of this article covers technology-centric thoughts on COVID-19 response, the people aspect of this is crucial to consider. It goes without saying keeping people safe during this global challenge is most important. With that being said, attention should be paid to the mental health of staff as we will all deal with this differently.

Anxiety

For many, this is causing increased anxiety as social and news media blanket us with the latest COVID-19 updates. Each staff member will be dealing with different issues from loved ones being in the affected zones, through to protecting at-risk loved ones and through to general stress in handling the extra workload. At Fireminds we have a well-established Employee Assistance Program, and we provide free and anonymous counseling to staff so they can speak with trained professionals about any challenges they may be facing. Recently we reminded all staff that they have this service available to them and encouraged them to use it as much as they need. Also, there are many online counseling services that staff can utilize if needed.

School Closures

Many regions have closed down schools, so staff will be juggling childcare in addition to working at home. This on its own will cause undue stress as the demands of the job and parenting will intersect at home. Even while authoring this article, I’ve had to handle one screaming child, making breakfast for them and the usual series of requests (i.e. can you put my audible story on Alexa). I have not had the benefit of my quiet corporate office and my staff to carve out quiet space for me to do my job, so the extra stress has started!

Pivoting back to technology, one of my best purchases in the past six months has been my Apple AirPod Pros, which I use to take phone calls, attend video conference calls and carve out some quiet space at the home office so that I can concentrate. I highly recommend you utilize a good pair of headphones with a microphone for your work at home adventures, as they are invaluable.

Isolation

One thing to keep an eye on with staff is the isolation they may experience, particularly if they enjoy the social aspect of office life. When I started Fireminds 11 years ago, it was a classic story of working from my garage, coding for a living, on my own. After doing that for the first six months, I felt quite isolated and opted to rent office space in a co-working space, just to get some human interaction.

I recommend having managers do check-ins with all staff every couple of days to see how they are coping and do those check-ins via video conference to increase the quality of human interaction significantly.

Our IT Ops team does morning tactical meetings, which they use to review the ticket queues, prioritize client work, and generally coordinate their efforts. We are pushing these teams to make these video conference calls to get the benefit of group interaction.

Also, I’ve started doing virtual coffees with staff to simulate us sitting around the office, catching up, and keeping interaction organic and genuine. Simple check-ins like this let people know you care and stops any of the isolation gremlins from creeping in.

Conclusion

It has been a busy week for our consulting and internal IT teams ensuring our users and clients alike are taken care of during the COVID-19 response. Our goal is to ensure all people stay safe and businesses stay productive during these challenging times.

This isn’t intended to be a comprehensive article on remote working, but a sharing of experiences from the past few weeks. Please feel free to share your best practices below and let's help each other through this time. Stay safe and healthy!

At Fireminds we have set up a task force to help those who need to implement remote working solutions, if there is anything in this article you would like to learn more about, please reach out to our team at [email protected].

About the author

Michael Branco is the Founder & CEO of Fireminds, an IT solutions partner serving businesses in North America, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. Michael has 20+ years’ of IT experience in cloud, managed services, software development, cybersecurity, and IT consulting. Fireminds is part of ATNI a NASDAQ listed telecom and technology provider with 1600 employees globally. Michael is also responsible for IT Infrastructure and Operations in ATNI.