MSPNetworks Blog

For all the good smartphones have brought about, some serious problems have arisen regarding their widespread use. In fact, they can be attributed to a lot of the damaging mental health side effects that people around the world are battling daily. Here are some of them.

For the past year or so, most workers around the world were forced to work remotely in order to adhere to the strict social distancing guidelines imposed by governing bodies. Now that the time has come to return to the office, many workers are finding that their expectations are a bit different than they were previously, forcing business owners to respond.

A new study released by Qualtrics titled the Future of the Workplace Study examines the perks that employees expect from the new office environment, as well as topics such as dress code and the drawbacks of remote work moving forward. This study focused its efforts on 1,000 United States full-time and part-time workers--not a particularly large sample size, but enough to get a snapshot of the landscape as we move into the post-pandemic workplace.

Concerns About Returning to the Office

According to the study, workers have several concerns about returning to work in the office environment. The top two concerns were social awkwardness from meeting coworkers and following proper social etiquette. But wait… weren’t these two things routinely done before the pandemic? While most workers are comfortable working with others in an enclosed space, the rate varies significantly by age, with about 25% of employees aged 55 or older being uncomfortable with the notion and 13% aged 18-34 being more comfortable with it.

Surprisingly, dress code also plays a significant role in employees’ returns to the workplace. People always joke about wearing pajama bottoms to work, as long as the top half of their body is presentable, but there might be more truth to this statement than you think. About a quarter of respondents suggested that “dropping leisurewear” would be a major challenge; 37% of respondents claimed that they would be dressing casually in the office moving forward, while 35% plan to dress business-casual. 

What Employees Want

With the workplace landscape having changed so dramatically over the course of a year, employers must now find new and inventive ways to make the return to the office more enticing. Similarly, employees will be looking for offices that incentivize remote or hybrid work in some capacity, or offer benefits to those who choose to work on-premises. Some of the most commonly requested benefits that employees request include offices with more natural light, access to fitness centers or gear, and outdoor spaces for collaboration. After a year of being shut in and forced to socially distance themselves, it’s no surprise that these are at the top of the list.

Other requests have to do with the way that the office is designed. If employees are working remotely at least part of the time, the question then becomes how the employer can accommodate this without wasting available space. Some businesses have experimented with the idea of assigning workplaces to employees as they are needed rather than having designated spaces for everyone. This level of flexibility allows employers to constantly assess their workplace usage and make changes as needed.

We know that the return to normalcy, whatever that looks like, will likely be fraught with many new challenges that you must address. Technology should not be one of them. MSPNetworks can help your office make the adjustments needed to either return to an in-house operations infrastructure or work toward a hybrid option. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Not everyone has a living situation that is conducive to working from home. That’s why many people have some problems as they are forced to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the problems with not having a dedicated space or the right type of situation to get work done from home is that your physical health starts to suffer. Today, we thought we would go through a couple of ergonomic suggestions that can help any remote worker feel better when working long hours from home.

Your Seat

You will want to find a comfortable seat, but you’ll probably want to avoid your bed or a couch as the primary seating arrangement when working from home. A hard chair doesn’t give enough support to the lower back or legs. If you can, get a chair with some type of built-in lumbar support, but if you can’t do that you can easily use a pillow or rolled-up throw blanket for this purpose. Ideally, it should have arms so you can rest comfortably, but if it doesn’t you can still use the tabletop/desk to rest your arms without crouching over. 

Additionally, if you don’t have a station that allows your feet to plant firmly on the floor, you will want to acquire a footrest. You can use reams of paper or a step stool. The aim is to have a workstation that allows your knees and hips to be at a right angle and have your feet planted firmly on a solid surface. 

Table/Desk

You will want a proper tabletop to do work on. If you don’t have a desk, a countertop or table will work as long as you can comfortably sit/stand without much strain. Most people work from seven-to-nine hours a day, ensuring that you have the space you need to do your work without having to contort is important. 

Accessories

If you use a laptop there are solutions out there that can allow you to broadcast your screen onto your TV or another monitor. This can work to give you more workspace or simply a larger display to complete work on. 

Another popular accessory is noise-canceling headphones. At home, there are often more things that can distract you than there are in the office. Get a good set of noise-canceling headphones—preferably ones with a built-in microphone—and you’ll be able to tune out of “home” and into “work”.

All the other peripherals should fit into a system that keeps your body well-positioned while you are working. That includes the chair, desk, computer, mouse, keyboard, and any other work-required equipment. 

If you would like to talk to one of our IT consultants about getting your staff the technology and resources they need to be their best in these difficult times, give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

Many states’ stay-at-home orders that are/were designed to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus are now lapsing all over the U.S. As a result, business owners are re-opening their doors to a great deal of uncertainty. We have put together this guide to help the business owner understand that, even though you’ve finally been given the go-ahead, you have a responsibility to keep your staff and customers safe.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the first time many of us have had to deal with this level of threat, and now that businesses start to re-open in an attempt to stagnate a recessionary dive in the economy, there is a lot of ground to cover. Today, we go through the considerations you need to make, and the actions you need to take, to keep your business clear of COVID-19, and what steps to take if the virus makes its way into your business. 

Mitigation

Understand Requirements

While stay-at-home orders may be lifted, there are many other regulatory bodies and authorities that will put forth various restrictions for the sake of public health. Whether imposed by federal, state, or local governments, or tailored to a particular industry that has specific requirements for their operations, it is critical that these directives are followed to the letter.

In the current situation, this becomes especially important in terms of the standards assigned by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC). Make sure you take the time to check for additional requirements applicable to your business’ industry, in addition to what applies to all businesses.

Compliance to ADA Rules

Many workplaces may consider testing for COVID-19 before allowing access to a business’ premises by anyone, which itself will require a few decisions to be made (how these tests are administered, who administers them, and the type of test to be used) and for these results to be protected as medical information.

The Americans with Disabilities Act and other assorted state laws also outline that these tests are only permitted if there is doubt that an employee can perform their job without posing a threat to themselves or their coworkers. While this standard was deemed to have been met by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, any updates could potentially change whether or not this screening is allowed. Check with your legal counsel before proceeding with these protocols.

Office Cleanliness

From your workplace to the employees to work there, you need to do everything you can to encourage a cleaner and healthier environment. Provide a few reminders pertaining to basic hygiene practices around the workplace, and make sure that it is cleaned and disinfected properly. Keeping the HVAC systems well-maintained and the office well ventilated also helps.

Social Distancing Adoption

Of course, we can’t discuss mitigating COVID-19 without bringing up social distancing. While many businesses are notorious for their close-quarter layouts, shared resources, and even their displays of etiquette, these need to be adjusted to maintain the recommended six feet (or more) of distance between people. Stagger shifts and enable telework, put up barriers and mark off boundaries, and discourage in-person meetings.

Safety Protocols and Precautions

It will also be necessary for you to put new rules and procedures in place to better ensure that your workplace is contributing as little risk as possible for your employees. This means that you will need to assign someone the responsibility of overseeing that all workplace processes are compliant with safety regulations. You will also need to be prepared to provide as many protections as possible for your employees, handle your staff and their potential absences in accordance with the law, and (as we’ll cover below) properly deal with an employee who becomes symptomatic.

Reaction

Understanding the Threats

Opening your business up in the time of a pandemic--especially one that has killed over 80,000+ of your countrymen--is unfortunately the situation many business owners are currently dealing with. It is important, then, to understand the threat that you, your staff, and your customers are under from COVID-19. 

Dealing with Employee Concerns

The first thing you should understand is that there is going to be a wide disparity of opinion amongst your employees. You will see people who are happy to be back to work and you will see people who resent you for re-opening your business before a vaccine has been found, and every option in between. Depending on the makeup of your staff, there will likely be some heated political debates that surround these opinions. Regardless of how outspoken your employees are, you need to be the person to take the action necessary so that the more anxious members of your workforce can do their jobs effectively. 

One of the best things you can do for workers returning to work after a layoff is to be prepared. Having masks, gloves, disinfectant soap, sanitizer, will ease fears, but as was mentioned earlier, you will need to have a policy dedicated to cleaning and sanitizing every surface you can. This type of effort has shown to mitigate COVID-19 transference as many alcohol-based products kill the virus before it can be transferred. 

COVID-19 does not have a vaccine, so it’s important that testing take place. A major problem is that testing hasn’t been made available, so if you have employees who can (and have been) doing their jobs from home, you will want to keep them home. If employees cannot do their jobs from home, as is true in many manufacturing and retail establishments, it is essential that the employees you bring back all have clean bills of health. The last thing you will need is a positive COVID-19 case shuttering the doors of your business. 

Additionally, there are still options for employers if they do have staff members who have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus in some way. Many businesses have been taking their employees’ temperatures as they come in to work to ensure that they aren’t running a fever, which of course is one of the telltale symptoms of COVID-19. Employers can dictate when their staff comes back to work, but in many states, there are regulations in place to protect workers. Your decisions should be neutral and not based on age, race, pregnancy, or any other identifier. You will want to send “rehire” letters that provide wage notices and outline the onboarding process.

Dealing with Symptomatic Employees

If one of your employees starts to present symptoms, you cannot panic, but they must be separated from the other employees. You will want to send them home and direct them to speak with a doctor so they can get tested. You will then need to notify the rest of your staff that they may have been exposed. You will want to try and protect the identity of the symptomatic employee if possible, but more importantly, you will want to ensure that there is transparency if someone does end up sick. 

You must remember that many employees are entitled to leave under federal, state, and local rules put in place for all situations related to COVID-19. Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, many people who have been exposed to COVID-19 or have other responsibilities that don’t allow them to get back to work, are eligible for paid sick leave.  

Dealing with a Lack of Demand

Finally, the hardest part of returning to work after the stay-at-home orders is that a lot of people are still extremely concerned about contracting the COVID-19 virus and will shelter-in-place much longer, or even until there is a working vaccine. That could be over a year away. Business owners need to be ready for a lack of consumer demand, especially in retail situations. While there are borrowing opportunities to help many small businesses get through these extremely lean times, recession will be a big problem for small business owners.

If you haven’t already, you will want to start looking at options to reduce your business’ spending. You should likely cancel any big projects you had in the pipeline and cut costs anyway you can. It’s unfortunate, but if you want to get your business through COVID-19 and through the resulting recession, you are definitely going to be asked to make some tough decisions. 

This is where MSPNetworks can help. We can provide you with many cost-effective options that can work to maintain productivity, prioritize security, and cut costs by outsourcing parts of your business. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you see your company through this extremely tough situation, call us today at (516) 403-9001.

People have been examining the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic and social shutdown from every angle. Unfortunately, some of those people took it as the opportunity they’ve been waiting for to try and steal data and in some cases money from unprotected and unprepared people and businesses online. Let’s examine how the events surrounding COVID-19 have had an effect on cybercrime.

A Variety of Threats

Today, there are a lot of threats out there that could threaten a business’ data and infrastructure. This has been exacerbated by the fear brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and most businesses don’t know where to start setting up their defenses. Most of the threats are in line with threats that they normally deal with, but many are seeing an increased frequency of them. By using COVID-19 as a ruse, cybercriminals threaten to take advantage of people's empathy. Some of the threats that business see:

• Phishing attacks 
• Distributed denial of service attacks
• Man-in-the-Middle attacks
• Network based user threats due to negligence or sabotage

Of course, any of these threats can undermine your business’ ability to function properly, let’s look at the latest scams businesses are actually dealing with:

Website Spoofing

People shouldn’t have to deal with these types of things during a public emergency, but scammers have been setting up spoofed websites to take advantage of people’s tendency to think it is less risky shopping online. From fake government websites to websites that claim to make available discount face masks or hand sanitizers (a couple of the new staples from the pandemic) are being set up to steal people’s personal information. Using this information, the more sophisticated hackers can gain access to people’s accounts, leaving individuals, and the businesses they work for, reeling. Here are a couple things you can do to keep from being a victim of false websites:

• Check the URL - A fake site might look just like the real thing, but the URL won’t. With a lot of these scams being run on government and banking websites, you will want to remain diligent to check the URL by running your mouse over any links or buttons on a page or webform. If you can’t see where the information is going, or if the address you find is suspicious, don’t send any of your personal information through the website. 
• Use Ad Blockers - Another great way to skim out fraudulent shady information is to utilize ad blocking software available through your browser’s store.

Email and Text Phishing

Of course, phishing is a big deal all the time as encryption does a good job of keeping traditional hackers out of their networks. Of course, phishing tactics change all the time, and since impersonating someone to gain access to personal information is one of the oldest and successful schemes on the web, it continues to be innovated upon. With over three billion phishing emails sent each day, unless you and your staff know how to spot and mitigate these threats, your organization will fall victim to one eventually. Here are a few strategies you can use to mitigate the risk from phishing emails:

• Confirm the Sender - The only way phishing emails work is when the person receiving the message trusts the information they are being sent. Ensuring that the message you’ve received is from who it says that it is from is one of the first steps in thwarting any phishing attempt.
• Don’t Click on Links and Attachments - Even a well-trained eye can be fooled by some link that looks legitimate but isn’t. It is important that if you aren’t expecting an email, or if you don’t personally know the person or organization that’s sending you messages (and their motives), don’t click on anything. 

Cybercrime will be here a lot longer than COVID-19 will be. It’s important that you take the steps necessary to protect your business (and yourself) from the threats presented by scammers online. For more information on how to stop COVID-19-based cyberthreats, or if you would just like to improve your business’ ability to train your staff on the importance of cybersecurity best practices, reach out to MSPNetworks today at (516) 403-9001.

We spend a lot of time on this blog talking about virus avoidance, but today we thought we would go into things you can do to keep another type of virus--specifically COVID-19--away from you and your technology.

It’s known that bacteria and viruses (including COVID-19 and many others) thrive in environments like a typical office. There are usually many people in a confined space and a lot of places that microorganisms and germs can get picked up.

To back up these claims (that only really need corroboration from workers that get sick from their contemporaries regularly), research suggests that the average office phone features more than 25,000 different types of bacteria, the average keyboard sports 3,000 per square inch, and the mouse has over half that. For reference, the average toilet has less than 300 per square inch. This tells you just how important it is to make efforts to keep your workspace clean. 

Virus Removal

You can’t just dump hand sanitizer on your keyboard and expect it to be clean. Here are some tips designed to help you keep yourself healthy:

Traditional Cleaning

It is important that you keep your office clean. Using soap and water to clean surfaces that are able to be cleaned that way and keeping the floors clean with a broom and mop will keep the office in good shape. 

Obviously, you shouldn’t clean your computing components with the same haphazard cleaning that you would do on your floors. You don’t want to ruin them with careless actions. 

Disinfecting Wipes

The disinfecting wipes can be quite useful to build a healthier office, as long as you are diligent about which wipes to buy. You’ll want to get the ones that tell you about their disinfecting power on the label.  You will want to check the labels to see if your supply says they kill viruses.

By using these disinfectant wipes, you will likely see fewer sick people. Cleaning surfaces like door handles, light switches, phones, chairs,  keyboards, and mice will go a long way toward sanitizing your whole office. Be sure to pay special attention to high-traffic areas in the office, like the staff refrigerator, vending machines, coffee machines, and the microwave, to properly disinfect them as well.

Encourage Hygiene

The thing that is going to keep your staff safe against contamination the most is their own hygiene. You’ll want to make a point to remind everyone in the office that they need to be washing their hands after they use the bathroom. You can also make sure that they have access to hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes, and other useful products that promote a sterile workplace.  Also, you would be wise to tell sick people to stay home from the office or allow them to work remotely if needed. 

Ultimately, with the COVID-19 pandemic bringing these issues to the forefront, you will likely begin to see people making these steps a priority. Nobody wants to get sick, so everyone has a reason to keep their workspace as clean as possible, but since every office has at least one slob, you will want to make sure to make it a priority for them to keep their desk clean. 

What does your company do to promote staff health? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Now months into the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home orders are still in place causing most financial analysts to suggest that the economies we depend on might not look the same when business returns. Let’s outline a couple of tips that will help get your business through this terrible situation.

It may be a busted time for your business, but you need to realize that this won’t last forever. Even if yours was one of the unfortunate ones that had to pause its business; or, if you had a plan for how you would maintain your business without its traditional revenue streams, the next few months will probably be difficult for you. Let’s take a look at a few things business owners should think about while things are slow; so their business can hit the ground running when the economy reopens. 

#1: Know Your Facts

This is not a time for conjecture. Not for workers, not for their employers. The first tip we suggest is to know the facts that you need to know in order to keep you in business. Take a look at your budget and make adjustments as necessary. Do you have any resource-intensive vanity projects? Are there entitlement programs you simply can’t fund? If you don’t know, find out. It will be imperative that you do your best to only make decisions when you are confident that they will end up helping your business.

Chances are that you probably didn’t have “worldwide pandemic” as a high probability of the things that would hurt your business. Honestly, who can blame you? That said, worldwide pandemic happened and those businesses that had a dedicated plan to change the way their business functions have had a much easier time overcoming the limitations this situation has presented. 

#2: Maintain Your Relationships

If you are like many business owners you have taken years to develop the relationships that drive your business. It is extremely important to maintain those relationships even if situations arise that will strain them. Your relationships with your financial partners and institutions, your vendors, and your customers rely on honest discourse. Some companies won’t be there when this situation resolves itself, and it’s important that if you want your business to avoid that fate that maintaining solid relationships will go a long way toward that goal.

#3: Think Proactively

Cost-cutting will be the motif for most businesses in the days ahead. Unless one of your business partners makes toilet paper, they are probably hurting to balance their budget too. You will need to understand that many agreements will need to be altered in the coming days. To keep this from causing problems for your business, you will want to proactively budget for these rising costs. You can expect higher interest rates, less available capital, and shorter repayment terms on the money you are able to borrow. 

You also need to be diligent about acquiring capital. By taking proactive financial steps to get you through this period, your business will be in a much better position financially when things begin to open up a little more.

Making sacrifices is always hard, especially if your business was in good standing as the pandemic hit.  By taking the time to make conservative operational and financial decisions now, you will be able to pull the right levers to get your business through whatever comes next.

For help with your post-pandemic technology needs give MSPNetworks a call at (516) 403-9001 today.

Improvements in technology have allowed us to come a long way since the days of our ancestors, which is made exceptionally clear by our developments in the realm of healthcare. There are so many ways that healthcare providers can use information technology to their advantage, so we’ll cover a select few here.

Technologies That Help Improve Medical Care

Electronic Medical Records

The typical person will pretty rapidly build up a pretty considerable medical file, provided they are going to the doctor on a regular basis. Naturally, this is even more the case for individuals with chronic conditions or who fall ill more often than average. It is important that their physicians are able to reference this file as they plan for each patient’s care, to ensure that their strategy doesn’t interfere with a past decision.

Electronic medical records make this information easier to store and access, enabling doctors more data to work with as they provide their care. Secure platforms keep the private matters hidden from unauthorized viewing, while making it easier for a patient and a physician to stay informed. 

3D Printing

While certainly not something one might have expected to find in this list, 3D printing has proven to have true benefits to healthcare. Crafting prosthetics and other customized materials has become far more precise than it once was, making outcomes far more effective for patients. This has actually led to other advances in medicine, allowing doctors to now craft replacement organs, tissues, and skin for patients in need.

Robot-Assisted Surgery

Many surgeons are renowned for the stillness of their hands as they operate, but as a human being, there are going to be limits to what they can do by hand. That’s why devices have been developed that can give them a much better view and more precise tools to work with as they command a robot that can get into places with less trauma and scarring to the patient. This combination of a physician’s talent with the unerring precision of a machine has created a much better way of performing surgeries and other complex procedures.

Looking to Implement More IT into Your Healthcare Practice?

We’re here to help. Reach out to the experts here at MSPNetworks to learn more by calling (516) 403-9001.