Viet Australia's business update: remote work during COVID-19 - things your company should pay attention to

The COVID-19 pandemia has probably triggered the world’s largest and most memorable crisis of our generation. One of the numerous consequences of this pandemic is social distancing, that was imposed on a world scale as a safety measure to avoid the spread of this disease.

This social distancing measure has begotten the biggest ever work-from-home experiment on a world scale. Nonetheless businesses still endeavour to continue operating, and for that reason they are forced to find solutions so as to continue to make their employees work while also minimizing close physical contacts.

The situation is not different in Vietnam, however compared to numerous countries the Government reacted quickly by taking serious and strong measures to limit the propagation of the COVID-19 in Vietnam. Throughout the last few weeks, the Government and many administrative bodies have taken decisions and issued decrees and have advised the population so as to limit the spread of the COVID-19 disease in Vietnam.

Temporarily gatherings in public places are suspended, it also includes some working places such as offices with a large number of employees. Under those circumstances, operating businesses in a traditional way is temporarily impossible. Leaders of Vietnamese and foreign-invested companies were forced to swiftly change their operations model to be able to perform the most vital operations. It has suddenly created a new model of workflows and therefore the way employees collaborate remotely needs to be rethought.

For those reasons, Viet Australia would like to give some advice to companies, especially those which workflow remained mainly on office work before the outbreak of the COVID-19.

• Appoint a coordinator for all employees working online

Such a position can sometimes be called Chief Information Officer (CIO). Depending on company. this can be a high-stress positiion as the CIO is responsible for the infrastructure on which the remote office heavily relies, the smooth sharing of information among employees working remotely, and the security of that information. It is vital that a such a coordinator will be in constant contact will all the staff so as to be able to coordinate them. This person needs to be aware of their location and situation, and needs disseminate timely and accurately work-related information, instructions, and assistance where required.

• Assess the security and efficiency of the means that your business use to communicate

Managers must ask themselves the following questions concerning employees working remotely:

• Can they rely on the existing corporate infrastructure in place to do their jobs?
• Is their organization reliant on centralized, physical servers located in the main office or in a data center?
• If so, are your employees able to access those servers sufficiently quickly to do their work under current circumstances?

If the company does not put in place an explicit short-term policy and take necessary measures to allow employees to do their work and meet deadlines, the inevitable consequence is that those employees will start to use less formal channels for corporate communication and data exchange such as Zalo, Facebook messenger, Whatsapp, Viber, and WeChat. It goes without saying that exchanging corporate content through those channels does not go without a certain level of risk. That is why companies should look for reliable alternatives in case of failure of means of communication/exchanging information.

• Examine cloud-based solutions as possible alternatives to corporate infrastructure

Corporate infrastructure can be difficult to access for remotely working staff. Therefore cloud-based services are often perceived as a durable and reliable solution for corporate communication and collaboration, as they can be accessed anywhere and at anytime easily. This kind of tool can provide your employees with direct access to the company's database without relying on data storage on physical servers. A company using cloud-based services for its communications and data storage will be able to manage different aspects of its operations on one single and universal platform, such as: email, file sharing and access, simultaneous collaboration. All of these functions can be integrated within the one single platform and delivered with a high degree of reliability and security. This kind of platforms also guarantee control over the information that is stored within according to the company’s own security policies and requirements. For big companies, this is a serious advantage in terms of compliance with local laws and regulations and with contractual commitments with clients.

If you have any questions concerning Vietnamese laws, business in Vietnam or any other related topic, and/or if you are interested in our Company's services, feel free to contact us by email: [email protected], or you can reach us by phone at (+84) 0903770777.

Viet Australia's Auditing Ltd. team