They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Well, ‘they’ must not have had to work from home during a pandemic. During the past few months of work-from-home (WFH) mandates, Beauregard (Beaux for short) and I have been officemates. A few years ago, we wrote a blog post about the 5 Things My Dog Taught Me About Business, where we explored things we’ve learned from Beaux over the years. Since education is reciprocal, I wanted to explore a few things that all this WFH business has taught Beaux. 

Change is uncomfortable but necessary

When the world shifted to WFH environments, it was uncomfortable for some. It was a complete 180 from the way they previously operated. New environments, new technologies, new tools, and new demands from the team turned the day-to-day life of many into something unfamiliar and strange. Beaux, who is deathly afraid of FaceTime, feels the pain of so many who just don’t want to be on video calls. Yet, this desire to stay personally connected with colleagues, clients, patients, and others is a critical part of the remote environment. Beaux certainly understands this, but he’s still very unsure about people’s faces and voices on the terrifying cell phone. 

One size doesn’t fit all

In March, IT teams were under pressure to deploy solutions that would solve the immediate need – empowering WFH employees. Today, IT departments are able to look at their tech stack from a much more proactive perspective to determine what solutions they need to support the business over the coming months. Are they going back to the office full-time? Will they keep specific departments in a remote environment? Are there employees that would prefer to work from home permanently? The answers to these questions have a direct impact on the technologies they need to deploy in the long-run. 

Beaux, while he’s undoubtedly enjoyed me being home, has had to make some serious adjustments to his daily routine. Sleeping all day is virtually impossible when you have a new officemate to follow around. Sometimes he gets an hour-long nap, and other times it’s just a few minutes. It’s a ‘ruff’ life for him, but he’s learning to be nimble and scale this time as needed. After all, he might miss a treat if he doesn’t go with the flow! 

So where do we go from here?

The world has changed in a matter of months. Your business, your employees, and your technologies must also adapt to the remote environments needed to keep moving forward. Whether you have identified severe gaps in technology or need someone to help you draft a plan for the future, LanYap’s team of experts is here to help. Beaux will also contribute to the discussion, as long as it’s not a video call. Give us a call and let’s see how we can help you scale your technologies to work no matter what the rest of 2020 may bring.