How to switch a company to remote in under 24 hours: A checklist for responding to Coronavirus

The Coronavirus outbreak is a rapidly changing situation and one that we are all reacting to. It was in our minds that we might go remote for a few days but, in reality, the switchover came in less than 24 dynamic hours. Our situation changed and we decided to react fast to best protect our people and continue to deliver service to our clients. 

As an open-source company, we try to be transparent and share any knowledge we gain—in both good circumstances and bad— that can be valuable to the community. We’ve learned and experienced a lot of new things this week and so, in the spirit of community, we want to present a checklist of things that any company going all-remote or mostly-remote over the coming weeks might want to bear in mind. I’m hoping that sharing our experience might make this difficult time easier for other businesses:

Can your office go 100% remote?

Before you take the plunge, is it actually possible or do you need all or some staff on-site to keep the business working? Make sure it is actionable before you take action

Decide what services are needed for any on-site staff 

If you only have a limited number of staff members who need to remain on-site, what do you do about security, cleaning and catering services? 

Reassess your cleaning services

Do you need your regular cleaning service or is it better to ask your contractor to thoroughly disinfect areas where your limited number of staff will actually be operating, in order to keep them safe? 

Take transportation into account

You may ask workers not to use public transportation for their own safety and that of their colleagues and families. If so, are company vehicles or other means available? And do you need to disinfect company vehicles before opening them up for use?

Make sure you can sign for important documents

Do you need someone on-site to sign for deliveries? There are a number of great software tools for electronic receipt of delivery which can also help here and should be explored, including a number in this article.

Give people the hardware and software they need for remote work

In our company, some developers state that it is nearly impossible for them to work on a single screen with a laptop. They need to have monitors at home to work effectively. This creates two key questions: Do you create special paperwork and ad hoc protocols to allow people to take potentially dozens of expensive pieces of equipment home, or do you trust that they will treat them well and return them in good condition after the exceptional circumstances are over? And do you ask each person to pick up and transport equipment themselves or do you hire a courier service to deliver equipment to each person’s address? The latter option may cost more money but relieves the burden on employees and is more likely to be covered by insurance.  

Support your support team 

Are your in-house support team capable of answering all the additional issues they will receive about hardware and software, or do you need to temporarily add to their numbers from other places. We are using Teamviewer to help our support team assist with technical issues.

Keep security at a high level

Can people work on their home computers or do they need to return to the office for their laptops? And once people are working from home, are they using a VPN to secure the network? Remember that if your company is under ISO or processes any personal or sensitive data, you have a different level of obligation that must also be met during remote work, just as they would in the office.

Lighten the load on parents

If schools are closed, many of your staff who are working from home will also be looking after kids at the same time. Do you offer them half-time for a couple of weeks to lighten the load? Or give them an hour or two of extra time off each day on full pay? Or switch to task-based schedules that don’t expect parents to be available for eight hours straight?

Don’t forget the plants, the fridges, and the electrical sockets!

If you are a couple of weeks out of the office, all that stuff in the fridge is going to come to life, and all those plants are going to struggle. One top tip is to put labels on all the plants showing which room they were from, they take them all to one of the bathrooms where a willing on-site volunteer can water them every couple of days en masse, rather than making hundreds of trips with a watering can around every space in the office. You can assemble a ‘closing day’ team of volunteers to move plants, throw away all perishables from the fridges, and switch off all electrical devices that can be safely powered down. 

Use tools that make remote work easier

We presume most businesses are already utilizing software like Jira, Asana, Figma, Slack, and Miro that make planning, communication, transparency, calls and workshops more fluid. If not, now is the time to get started. To make it easier, some companies are offering free video conferencing deals. And project management application Asana sent out this mail today offering free usage to qualifying non-profits who are engaged in the fight against COVID-19.

These are some of the main topics that came up as we were discussing the implementation of our stay-at-home policy. You may also have a whole list of other things that are not on our radar. However, I’ve tried to cover as much as I can here to make this painful process a little easier and hopefully save a few headaches for other businesses. Good luck over the coming weeks and I’m already looking forward to seeing all my team in the office again. We are a remote-friendly company and this is a great challenge for us, but we do love being together in the HQ.

Also, If you are interested in reading more about the current situation with the COVID-19 coronavirus and how it may impact business, here are some articles that I recommend.

Coronavirus and the global economy: Business leaders are asking “will there be a recession, how bad will it get, and what are the scenarios for recovery and growth?”

 Surviving a sustained crisis: HBS Dean Nitin Nohria discusses the qualities of organizations that are best equipped to cope before, during, and after a pandemic.

COVID-19 Briefing note: A range of outcomes is possible. Decision-makers should not assume the worst. A report by McKinsey and Co.