How to Create a Useful Employee Handbook

If your procedures and policies aren’t currently documented, they need to be. A written policy and procedure guide can help keep your team up-to-speed on the expectations that you have of them. Consider it a quick and easy reference for your employees to use to answer their questions. In light of this, here’s some tips to keep in mind as you put together your business’ employee handbook.

People Have Been Working From Home Longer than You Think

Working from home isn’t new, but with the COVID-19 pandemic sparking public health fears many businesses decided to move their operations offsite. For much of the past decade remote work was an available strategy for business, but many business owners feared it would give them a lack of control over their workforce, and therefore was largely ignored. This was despite remote work being a strategy people have embraced for a long, long time. Today, we take a look at the history and progression of working from home.  

Is there a Difference Between Restarting and Just Turning It Off?

In a word, yes. Sure, there’s the obvious difference in that one leaves you with a computer that is turned off while the other results in it being turned on again, but there are other important differences that are present behind the scenes. Let’s go over a few of these differences, and how they impact when you should restart your computer versus when you should shut down completely.

Answers for the Business Still Using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Attention: You Aren’t Safe Listen up: if you are still using Windows 7–or much worse yet, Windows Server 2008 R2– and these machines are connected to a network that is connected to the Internet, that network is in jeopardy. Microsoft has retired support for both operating systems and will no longer provide crucial security updates and bug fixes making them vulnerable to cyberattacks.   What Moves Should You Make? You need to do what you can to upgrade away from Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. What If You Can’t Upgrade? If your company depends on legacy titles that are only compatible with these systems, there are things you can do to protect your network. They include: Make sure firewall and antivirus are up to date – There are still risks when you keep systems running these OSs connected to your network, but by upgrading firewall and antivirus you’ll have a better chance at keeping unwanted entities off of these systems. Update other software – Along with security solutions, you’ll want to make sure other pieces of software you run on the platform are updated. For example, Google Chrome has stated it will support Chrome on Windows 7 until July 2021. Take resources offline – If your Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 systems are taken offline, they are effectively quarantined away from the rest of your computing resources. What Are Your Options Going Forward? You will need to upgrade. For Windows 7, you can upgrade to Windows 10 or you can look to the cloud. There are options offered, such as the Windows 365 bundle, that delivers Windows 10 Pro, customizable security, and Microsoft Office 365 for a monthly fee per user. Regardless of what you choose, you need to get crucial business computing systems off of Windows 7. For Windows Server 2008 R2, you’ll need to upgrade to a supported version of Windows Server. Knowing that this can come with massive upfront costs, Microsoft also provides migration solutions though their Azure cloud services. If you are still using unsupported Microsoft operating systems, you need to start planning your upgrade today! Call the IT experts at GeekboxIT to get started moving your business’ critical computing resources away from vulnerabilities by giving us a call at (336) 790-1000.

Tip of the Week: Your Cybersecurity To-Do List

It is a well-established and widely-known fact that your employees are some of the biggest threats to your business via the technology that they use each and every day. If your employees aren’t aware of the practices and policies that they need to follow to prevent these threats, you could find yourself in an unpleasant position. Here, we’ll review four categories of cybersecurity basics that everyone in an organization should abide by, and some tips to support each.