Working from home used to be considered a privilege or even a benefit for workers, but as the recent Covid pandemic has shown us, sometimes organisations need everyone to work remotely as a matter of business continuity. It is in times of crises, created by a pandemic, technology outage or even a natural disaster that sometimes the only way to conduct business means everyone has to be working remotely.

Technological progression has been so rapid over the past few years that mobile devices and products that were first launched 10 (and in some cases, 5) years ago, seem incredibly outdated. It’s amazing to think that it was just 20 years ago that the first mobile phone with a digital camera was launched by Sharp, with a pretty unimpressive 0.11 megapixels. 10 years later, the first revolutionary Galaxy S was launched with 16GB of storage and a 5-megapixel camera, whilst the latest iPhone 11 has up to 512GB of storage, three 12-megapixel cameras, 4K video recording and a list of features that would take me hours to run through.

The Situation:

Over the past few months, Covid-19 has impacted us all in many different ways. Something we can all relate to is that it has changed the way that we work, with different locations and enforced home working, altering the way that we all access data.

I have been speaking to customers over the past few weeks about how they are planning for the new normal and have been hearing several common thoughts. These include reviewing the use of existing office space, adopting a much more accepting and flexible approach to working from home, a clear appetite for greater flexibility when it comes to new locations in the future and working to ensure that data is accessible securely for the people that need it.  

For some organisations these unprecedented circumstances have validated recently implemented cloud strategies, for others, it has accelerated plans to adopt more flexibility in their IT infrastructure and for many, it has made them sit up and consider what the future should look like. Regardless of which camp you sit in it does not hurt to reflect on the learnings of the past few months and build them into an ongoing strategy.

Practical tips from FluidOne

One of the most important things for all of us to do in these troubled times is to make sure that we are looking after our welfare and mental health. The daily news is often depressing, and lockdown rules can feel suffocating. However, it’s not all doom and gloom and it’s important for us all to take some comfort from the positives. We have seen mass singing from balconies, virtual group exercise classes, a weekly community applause for our health workers and have even found a new British hero in Captain Tom Moore.

Here at FluidOne, we understand that as employers it’s our duty to ensure that all of our people feel supported during this difficult time. As such, our leadership and people team have been building a series of proactive communications, virtual team building activities and requesting regular feedback from our employees so that we can make working from home as enjoyable as possible.

We wanted to share some of our experiences and give you some ideas to help you keep your own teams engaged. To ensure a perfect balance of activities, we have been focusing on the four happy hormones 😊

When I look back on my career there will be events and dates that have significance. The 16^th March 2020 was the day we suspended access to the FluidOne office because of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the UK and I’m sure that it will be remembered as the day that changed the way we work forever.

You will have seen many articles in recent weeks that talk about working from home (WFH) as if it’s a brand new concept, clearly, this is a very different time with extended pressures on technology, but as we and a number of our clients at FluidOne already have systems in place, I wanted to put together a guide that looks at the things your business should be considering, both today and after the pandemic.

SD-WAN is the ultimate buzz word in the market, so we would be surprised if you hadn’t heard of it. Just in case you haven’t, SD-WAN is the next generation of networking services offering a new range of hardware, with configuration and controls hosted in the cloud, bringing new levels of visibility and control to customers and service providers beyond traditional services.

A few months ago we ran a webinar at FluidOne for customers about a full fibre Britain and what this means for us all. It was a great session with good debate and brilliant Q&A....

For preparation I carried out a great deal of research and as I was trawling through information, I came to appreciate and understand why our industry may be confused around what is going on with the copper network.

So for those who were unable to join the webinar I thought I would write a short blog which guides you through copper retirement and steps you should take.

On September 8th, we're taking part in Rough Runner and raising money for Campaign Against Living Miserably:CALM a truly fantastic cause...

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is a movement against male suicide, the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the UK... 

Network aggregator FluidOne announced their next generation, ultrafast fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) enhancement, G.FAST.

Offering remarkable speeds of up to 330 Mb/s download and 50 Mb/s upload, G.FAST is set to transform how businesses use the internet.

Using cutting edge technology, G.FAST sets FluidOne at the forefront of the market. The technology uses existing copper infrastructure and is delivered over a single phone line, in the same way as FTTC.