Computers are hardy machines, but even though they’re designed perfectly for what they do, they can’t take care of themselves. Computers need looking after in many different ways to serve your company effectively. Hardware doesn’t last a lifetime, and actually has a clear life-cycle that begins even before you purchase it. Monitoring this, and other things closely, can help you know how best to take care of your company’s computers, and laptops. Here are some general tips to keep your company’s computers lasting longer, and operating efficiently.
Individual Responsibility
The first question to ask when it comes to caring for company computers, is who is it that will be doing the caring? It can be a daunting decision to give your employees responsibility for both their software and hardware. However, knowing they’re in charge can encourage employees to look after their hardware on an individual basis. Offering out this responsibility to your staff is much easier than having a single employee, or team, keeping tabs on all of the computers in your business.
Clear Policies
If you’re going to give your employees care of their own work computer, and even if you’re not, it can be helpful to set out general policies for tech within your business. Lay out these rules in inductions for new employees, and hold a short tech training session for existing employees. In your IT policy should be guidelines, or hard and fast rules, around whether an employee can take hardware home, how often hardware should be externally cleaned, what sites can be accessed, and the places employees should go for software or hardware issues, etc.
Great IT Support
The software that your company opts to use can always have an effect on hardware. For example, things like battery life on company laptops and phones can be improved or prevented from diminishing with new software updates. Choosing a great IT Support Rotherham-based service will help you keep your computers updated with the latest software for ease of use. IT support don’t just deal with software either; they’ll know how to get the most longevity from your hardware. It also means you’ll have a team of people ready to deal with any computing issue quickly, to get your employees back up and running.
Cyber Safety, and File Removal
As an everyday safety tip, it’s perhaps most important to make your employees aware of good practices when accessing the net on their company computer. This includes things like only accessing secure sites, and removing suspicious emails from their folders. Strong passwords should be required to access your company’s intranet and make sure that individual devices are secured adequately. All passwords should be changed at regular intervals to ensure constant protection. This goes for data too, and employees should remove any old files that are no longer needed on their computer through approved channels.
Pro-active Replacement
Finally, it’s true that recycling once new hardware throughout a company is a shrewd financial move. But this certainly isn’t good for employee productivity, or the health of your computers. Slow and old hardware can hamper profits in the long run, by obstructing employee workflow. After all, no one likes working on an old computer. Periodically replace your computers when they become too slow, especially if you choose to avoid replacing hardware when the latest releases are made available.
