A few practical considerations for welcoming your team back to the office

Thinking back to the mad panic that was March 2020, when whole offices of people were having to be packed down and mobilised to work from home, I wonder how we all did it! There have certainly been some challenges along the way and there may be a few more as we begin to plan to go back to the workplace, not least in making sure the office is ready to have more people in it again.

Whatever your plan might be for when staff come back and desks are full again, it is worth considering the simple things which could be the difference between it being a stressful day or a day to rejoice. Here’s our checklist of things to think about:

• Have abandoned workstations been switched on and updated to make sure they’re still operational and secure?
• Have any licences been allowed to expire which now need to be reactivated?
• Are all office workstations fitted with webcams for those whom Zoom and Teams have now become part of daily life?
• Have dormant devices such as printers been checked through to make sure they’re still working? 
• Did you cut back any services such as broadband connections which will need to be switched back on?
• Were cables and leads robbed in order to help people get set up at home in a hurry?
• Have changes been made to networks which will need changing back?
• Have screens gone home that need to come back?
• Have phone lines or phone systems been forwarded / changed which will need changing back?
• Have people been storing data on home computers which need to be put back onto company drives etc?
• Most importantly…………. Is the office well stocked with Tea, Coffee and Biscuits?

If you have any doubts about how your return to work will go, please get in touch and we’ll happily give your IT infrastructure the once over to point out any potential banana skins.