Corona Virus news for Engineering Teams

With the current focus on the health of the nation, I am seeing engineering firms taking a hard look at how the current condition of the world is going to impact their business. Shutting down the entire team is most likely not going to be an option! What I am seeing is a hard focus on what can and should be done to not only keep the team productive, but to keep clients engaged and aware that their project is still number one, and the team as a whole is going to do what it takes to get their project delivered.

Two main areas that engineering firms are implementing:
1. Basic cleanliness/safety: Soap, paper towels, anti-viral/bacterial wipes are being used as much as possible on all surface. Prevention to begin with is important to workers and employers.
2. Workers can telecommute: I received an email with a company that asked anyone with any type of cough or illness, or temperature of any kind, to please remain home. To accomplish this companies are testing their current VPN solutions, along with other solutions such as remote desktop connections, cloud storage/access, and other methods to allow workers to continue to be productive if they need to work from home.

While the Corona Virus is not a welcome addition to the workplace, it is a reminder of how dynamic a well organized team needs to be. A distributed system to enable workers to work from anywhere allows more flexibility in your organization.

What is 21 North Design Services doing? We are working with engineering firms to enable distributed systems to operate from anywhere. This looks different for each team, and with our experience we take the needs of the client to help them achieve a custom solution that works for their needs.

To all those that have had loved ones affected by the Corona Virus, our hearts are forever with yours. May we cherish our families more each day. We have a safety training every month where the main goal is "Return Home to YOUR Loved Ones". If that takes us all telecommuting from home to keep all of us safe, lets do it!