The days of a 9 to 5 workday — exclusively from the office — are coming to an end as work is no longer confined by place and time. In fact, 66% of organizations allow remote workers and 16% of employees work remote full time.

What’s making this possible is the evolving role of digital technology to improve business processes and enhance employee experiences. But what makes this successful is the evolving responsibility of IT.

In today’s climate, more organizations than ever before are examining their remote employee and work-from-home policies — be it for health, employee retention or employee productivity reasons.

In our blog series, we explain how you can best serve employees and the organization as a whole by:

Part 1: Successfully onboarding remote and on-site staff

Part 2: Securely connecting employees to resources regardless of their location

Part 3: Fully supporting permanent and temporarily remote employees

Better onboarding experience for all

The speed at which organizations must empower employees to be productive is directly correlated to the retention rate and level of productivity of new hires. When organizations deliver a strong onboarding experience, they can improve employee retention rates by 82% and employee productivity by over 70%.

So, it is paramount that organizations are offering the right technology and leveraging the right tools to facilitate a streamlined onboarding process for remote and on-site employees. But when it comes to choosing how to best support those goals, not all technology and tools are created equal.

Apple hardware is becoming much more commonplace in enterprise organizations around the world. The ease of use and growing employee demand are opening the eyes of many organizations to support and offer Mac, iPad and iPhone. And, this trend has tremendous benefits for employees, IT and the entire organization.

Efficient onboarding for IT

IT only gets one chance to make a good first impression. They can nail theirs by leveraging Apple Business Manager to institute a company-wide zero-touch device deployment strategy. When a new device is unboxed and powered on, Apple Business Manager tells the Mac, iPad or iPhone to automatically enroll into the organization’s mobile device management (MDM) solution.

Jamf Pro — the gold standard for Apple enterprise management — is built from the ground up to deeply support Apple Business Manager and take it to the next level. With powerful technology like Smart Groups — which help intelligently manage environments without any interaction — Jamf Pro is the best platform to support a growing remote workforce. For small businesses, Jamf offers Jamf Now — mobile device management built for anyone.

Apple Business Manager — a free service from Apple — also helps streamline the process of Apple IDs, when paired with a management solution like Jamf Pro or Jamf Now. Leverage Managed Apple IDs and be fully in charge of the setup and management of the Apple ID. Employees benefit from an Apple ID strategy that is clearly designated for work, eliminating any confusion about whether they should use their personal Apple ID in the workplace. Admins will enjoy fewer support tickets as end users are empowered to manage and reset their own passwords without needing IT support.

This workflow completely eliminates the process of unboxing each device and physically touching it to get it personalized and configured for each employee. Gone are the days of IT needing to be buried under a mountain of new hardware. With Jamf and Apple Business Manager, deploying a new device is as easy as ordering it via the Apple Business Manager portal and shipping it directly to an end user’s desk or home. No further IT interaction is needed, so you can get back to supporting your distributed workforce in other ways.

To institute the zero-touch deployment process, all organizations need to do is prepare, purchase and deploy.

Prepare:

1. Sign up for Apple Business Manager
2. Link Apple Business Manager account to the MDM server
3. Configure settings and enrollment customization

Purchase:

1. Order Apple hardware through Apple or an authorized Apple reseller
2. Assign devices for enrollment

Deploy:

• Send shrink-wrapped Apple devices directly to employees
• Employee unboxes and turns on
• Apple device enrolls into management automatically

Easy onboarding for employees

First days are inherently stressful for employees. Alleviate their concerns by getting the tools they need (and want) in their hands on day one through a zero-touch deployment.

For a remote employee, productivity is literally a few taps or clicks away. They simply look for their new Apple hardware in the mail, unbox it and power it on. That’s it! Employees become instantly connected to their work resources, including mail, VPN and productivity apps in the same exact manner as their on-site counterparts. Your device management solution should also allow for flexible configuration of the Enrollment Customization workflow, making it easy for you to provide video, documentation or other information as a new employee clicks through the enrollment screens on their device.

Once online, remote employees are able to quickly find and take advantage of their favorite apps or other critical resources thanks to Self Service, a free curated app portal available to every end user in the organization.

IT doesn’t have to touch any devices and employees don’t have to step foot in an office to get their hardware.

Empower the modern, mobile workforce

The recent health crisis is only one reason why organizations need to put workflows in place to keep employees safe and productive no matter where they are.

The remote-worker trend will only continue and to maintain a positive company culture, remote employees must be empowered just like their on-site counterparts. Jamf makes this possible, all while delivering the best and most secure employee experience.

Get ahead of the mass-migration to home offices by starting your Jamf trial today. And once a customer, take advantage of over 130 free online training modules on how to best leverage Jamf to empower your workforce.

And be on the lookout for part two of our blog series on how to securely connect employees to resources regardless of their location. In the meantime, sign up for our webinar for additional ways you can support a remote workforce.