How to overcome an unproductive workforce during the Tube strike

It is estimated that July’s Tube strike cost the British economy £300 million in revenue, but what can be done to buck the trend of an unproductive workforce during this week’s strike?

While the capital was divided on whether or not to support July’s strike, the inconvenience was shared by businesses across the city as productivity fell.

From a technological perspective, mass remote working at short notice can cause havoc for IT pros, who often find themselves inundated with help desk tickets as people struggle to access the tools they need to work effectively.

With this in mind, businesses affected by the downturn in productivity should draw positives from being caught on the back foot, and use the experience as a learning to ensure they have robust measures in place to support flexible working, believes Joel Dolisy, SVP and CTO/CIO of SolarWinds.

With another Tube strike starting at 6:30pm today (August 5th) and running throughout the whole working day on Thursday 6th August, businesses need to make sure they are not caught short while driving workforce productivity.

Without proper IT support in place for remote workers, organisations could end up having more pressure on their help desk teams by disgruntled employees who are facing telecommuting problems from accessing network resources.

Here are Dolisy’s top tips for IT pros to make sure their organisations make the most of the situation:

– Implement remote working practices supported by the right tools. Working from home, from a technological perspective, should be no different from working in the office.

– Utilise remote support tools to ensure end-user requests can be resolved without needing to be physically present at the end-user’s machine. Some remote support tools only work within the corporate firewall, but many work both inside and out.

– Invest in a firewall that allows for secure connections to computers regardless of VPN connectivity.

– Empower IT pros with mobile IT administration tools to monitor and be alerted on critical infrastructure issues across the network.

Image source: Shutterstock

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