Business Continuity Plan Helps Company Transition to Remote Workforce

April 7, 2020

Headquartered in a hurricane-prone region, Louisiana-based Punctual Abstract had the ability to quickly move staff to a remote environment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company already had a business continuity plan in place to help them during hurricane season, “so it was relatively easy for us to make the transition to working remote,” said Ted Woloszyk, CEO of Punctual Abstract.

The company recently moved its data to cloud-based servers, giving staff with secure logins can access it from virtually anywhere. Network access is granted through a VPN, (Virtual Private Network), that adds an additional level of security and encryption for staffers accessing the system remotely. Staff members were issued company-owned computers and equipment, rather than relying on personal computers, “so they have the capability to meet their production and daily goals,” Woloszyk added.

One thing that surprised Woloszyk was that not all staff had sufficient internet access—or any access at all.

“For the first few days, we did see some decline in productivity due to employee internet bandwidth, and that's where we have worked with the employee to give them the appropriate bandwidth at their house so they could have the full speed in order to meet their production and our expectations,” Woloszyk said. “I had two team members who did not have internet in their houses, and some of the people that had it at their houses, their internet speed was not up to par. We reached out to our local internet providers and we are paying the difference to give them the appropriate speed for them to work from home.”

To help keep his team connected, Woloszyk said his company uses Go To Meeting for morning leadership calls and other meetings. They also utilize the screen-sharing capability for peer-to-peer training.

Working from home doesn’t have to mean working in isolation,” he said. “What’s happening with the coronavirus is beyond our control. “All we can do is make sure the people around us have the support they need to do their jobs, and that’s what we’re doing.”


Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or communications@alta.org.