On-site IT teams have historically been critical to any successful business. Most equipment had to be managed in person by accessing the physical device to make necessary updates. Even with the widespread adoption of remote working, many IT teams are still required to be on site. Nowadays, with cloud-based networking, your IT staff can be regionally distributed, managing devices across your network no matter where they are. While supporting a remote workforce can be a challenge, creating the right experience can help you boost engagement and attract the right talent from anywhere.

Hire who you need, wherever they are

If you run a business, you expect problems that impact operations and revenue to be resolved immediately. Achieving that is complicated by the fact that IT professionals are becoming more and more difficult to hire and retain. Some sectors are able to mitigate that challenge by offering increased wages and benefits, while others may be hamstrung by limited budgets and competing priorities. What has been common practice with many job types, especially during the pandemic, is to take advantage of the shift to remote working and hire IT professionals regardless of their location—IT support included. By providing flexible work options, businesses can be more competitive in the market for IT talent. 

Keep your heroes happy

At the recent Meraki Network user conference, John Gallant from IDG noted that, “IT were the heroes in the past 12 months, and now they are being looked at to improve [general] employee experience.” IT staff had to put on their capes to address the sudden pivot to remote work. And while they’ve been asked to help buttress the remote work experience for their colleagues, it’s important to likewise do the same for them. After all, it’s important to keep your heroes happy.  

This process must include updating to cloud-based networking and security solutions for centralized visibility and control. In addition, IT teams need tools to help them sort through notifications and alarms to ensure that important issues rise to the top. 

Your remote work tool box

Meraki provides the technology solutions you need to support your remote team. The Meraki platform, with its super-friendly dashboard and machine-learning derived metrics, gives IT teams the ability to quickly spin up new locations and manage network settings from anywhere. Enable remote workers to securely connect to the corporate network and provide cellular backup with the Z3 teleworker gateway. Shape traffic over Auto VPN, prioritize critical and business-impacting applications across the network, And secure apps and data with Umbrella cloud security. In addition, Meraki Systems Manager gives full access and control to connected devices, making it much easier to set up and troubleshoot remote worker issues. 

The Meraki marketplace offers third-party apps that give businesses complete choice on designing their workforce experience. For example, PagerDuty integrates Meraki to surface alerts to relevant teams based on a customer-defined schedule and prioritization. Choose from over 170 applications or develop your own to meet your specific needs.

The remote workforce experience has matured significantly. With cloud-based network visibility and control, coupled with apps to escalate business-impacting issues to the right teams, organizations can hire the right IT staff for their needs, wherever they may be.