Wanting To Try Hybrid Working?
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many social distancing plans and procedures have been put in place, making it difficult to carry on working as we once did. Working in a busy environment during these times can be a health and safety issue, and a worry for many key workers. For key workers within the NHS, the want and need to go to work can conflict with the need to social distance with colleagues and patients. At the peak of the pandemic, a lot of workers were made to cut to part time roles to ensure workplaces weren’t too crowded. This had a huge financial effect on individuals, as well as effecting the businesses productivity.
Away From My Desk has helped many of our customers work around social distancing, by allowing GP surgeries to adopt a hybrid-working model, whereby staff members work a couple of days in the office and a couple at home using our NHS Remote Access software. Our software allows users to access their work PC, from the comfort of their own home or other location by showing a live image of the screen at the surgery. This allows users to complete their work just as if they were in the surgery.
Like many, practice manager Omar had the worry of not being able to organise his staff around social distancing in their small surgery. Omar wanted us to share his story in hope of helping other practice managers in similar situations.
“When the pandemic first hit, there were so many questions of how we would cope with social distancing and government guidelines in place to keep our staff and patients safe, whilst continuing our work as normal. We have a fairly small surgery and essentially had to half the number of staff members present in the office at one time. This was not only causing stress to myself and my management team wondering how we would keep on top of work whilst keeping our staff and patients safe, but also caused our staff a lot of stress regarding how they would continue earning a wage and keep on top of their work. The mental toll this was starting take on our staff was really tough.
I had heard of Away From My Desk through our clinical commissioning group and enquired for a 30-day free trial for my staff straight away. The admin team were really helpful in explaining how the set-up works and how many licenses we would need in order for our hybrid-working model to work in the way we wanted it to. The initial set up took a few days since there were so many of us and we had some specific requests, so I was amazed at how quick and organised the Away From My Desk team were at getting this ready for us.
The team provided us with all the documents and guidance we needed to use the service, and they also provide really great support with extensive hours so that users can call with any concerns when logging in. Any issues are usually down to user error and are always resolved quickly by the Away From My Desk team.
We have been using the service for over two years now and it has drastically improved how we run our surgery. It means we can reduce the number of clinicians in the surgery, only needing enough to cover face to face appointments and any admin staff who don’t need to be in the office can now work from home. Even now that social distancing has eased, the added benefit to Away From My Desk is that now we have it set up, we can utilise it in other situations such as working around family, travel restrictions, illness, shielding and isolation. I have seen a significant change in staff morale.”
Could your office benefit from hybrid working? Why not sign up for a free 30-day trial of Away From My Desk today to see how we can help you!
