301-571-5040    Get SUPPORT

Washington Works Blog

Washington Works has been serving the Bethesda area since 2005, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Washington Works has been serving the Bethesda area since 2005, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Protect Your Laptop from Theft

Protect Your Laptop from Theft

We talk about cybersecurity a lot. We talk about protecting your data from the illusive threat that hackers and cybercriminals bring. We don’t often talk about the more obvious type of security - preventing the physical theft of your data. I think it’s time.

0 Comments
Continue reading

We’ve Answered Some FAQs About Remote Workers

We’ve Answered Some FAQs About Remote Workers

Worldwide, we’re a good few months into dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, with many nonessential businesses shutting their doors for the time being. Even those industries that can’t just stop their operations are seeking alternatives, leading many to turn to implementing as much of a remote workforce as possible. Many still have questions about doing so, however, so we want to do our best to help answer some of the common questions these business people might ask about remote work.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Rethinking Your Budget for a New Reality

Rethinking Your Budget for a New Reality

With the COVID-19 outbreak forcing businesses into unenviable situations, it’s probably not surprising that business owners and decision makers are looking at what expenses they need to cut in order to keep their businesses afloat. Today, we’ll discuss the trends we are seeing and how managed IT services can be a godsend in situations like this.

0 Comments
Continue reading

How to Achieve Productivity while Working Remotely

How to Achieve Productivity while Working Remotely

Productivity is a concept that has long been viewed as the gold standard in businesses. However, with so many businesses currently transferring to remote operations in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, it can be challenging for all involved to work as productively as they would while in the office. On the other side of the coin, the right behaviors can make it quite effective. 

0 Comments
Continue reading

VoIP is a Great Tool for Remote Work

VoIP is a Great Tool for Remote Work

Social distancing has more or less confined many to their homes, and so many people have begun to adopt remote working to stay busy and to keep their workplaces operational. One way to assist these activities, VoIP (or Voice over Internet Protocol) is a massively helpful tool that many businesses use. Here, we’re going over why this is.

We’ll begin by reviewing the current situation.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Working from Home Isn’t Without Significant Cybersecurity Risks

Working from Home Isn’t Without Significant Cybersecurity Risks

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly disrupted daily life, restricting people to their homes and preventing them from going into the office to work. In response, many companies are hurriedly changing over to a remote-capable workforce and having their employees work from home. This strategy can be highly effective, but if a company and its team isn’t careful, it can also be risky.

1 Comment
Continue reading

Tip of the Week: Remote Productivity Tips

Tip of the Week: Remote Productivity Tips

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused many businesses to enact a work-from-home policy. With so many people working from home, we thought it would be a good idea to write up some simple tips to follow to give yourself the best chance of being productive. 

0 Comments
Continue reading

What You Need to Know to Manage a Remote Workforce

What You Need to Know to Manage a Remote Workforce

There are many reasons that your team may want (or need) to work from home, and there are many reasons to allow them to do so. A 2019 survey by OwlLabs indicated that 71 percent of remote workers are happy with their job (as compared to 55 percent of on-site workers); remote workers responded that they are 13   percent more likely than onsite workers to stay in their current job for five more years than onsite workers will; and when respondents claimed to be working longer than 40 hours per week, onsite workers were doing so out of necessity, while remote workers did so out of desire and enjoyment.

0 Comments
Continue reading

The Employee’s Guide to Working Remotely

The Employee’s Guide to Working Remotely

It’s not uncommon where a situation arises and you will find yourself working from home. To make this work, it is important that you keep a few additional issues in mind so that you can make the most of it. We have put together a few simple best practices that you should keep in mind as you operate remotely.

0 Comments
Continue reading

It’s Time to Get a VPN

It’s Time to Get a VPN

A virtual private network (also known as a VPN) is something that more and more businesses are using, especially now while most of the workforce is now working from home. As a means of encrypting data while it is in transit, the use of a VPN enables you to transmit assorted types of data more safely. Of course, not all VPNs are the same, and so you need to be careful to select the right solution for your needs.

0 Comments
Continue reading

A Bit of Fun Can Get Work Done Faster

A Bit of Fun Can Get Work Done Faster

When you want your workforce to operate more productively, and engagement has been shown to have positive effects on productivity, it makes sense that you would want to actively promote activities that have been shown to improve engagement. One approach that many companies and organizations are now embracing is gamification. Let’s discuss the concept of gamification, and how it might benefit your business.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Tip of the Week: New Uses for an Old Mobile Device

Tip of the Week: New Uses for an Old Mobile Device

Once a mobile device outlives its presumed usefulness, the default assumption is that there is nothing left to do but dispose of it. However, before you do so, reconsider. There may be other ways that your device could show its utility. For today’s tip, we’ll review a few ways that an aged-out smartphone or tablet can still be handy for you (even in the office)!

0 Comments
Continue reading

Backup Delivers Peace of Mind in Times of Crisis

Backup Delivers Peace of Mind in Times of Crisis

With most businesses dipping into their disaster recovery strategies, and millions of workers either out of work or working remotely, it is honestly a great time to remind you that March 31st is World Backup Day. This is a day where we help promote the idea of taking backups of your crucial IT systems to ensure that you have access to your important information if a disaster were to strike your business.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Is a NAS Right for Your Office?

Is a NAS Right for Your Office?

Today’s business generates a lot more data than in the past. For a small or medium-sized business storing this data, it can get pretty expensive pretty quickly. One way to store and manage all this data is by using Network attached storage (NAS). Today, we will define NAS and explain when it might be a good fit for your business.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Strategies that Help Prioritize Productivity

Strategies that Help Prioritize Productivity

Businesses are always looking for a way to boost productivity. Some businesses will try almost anything to do so. For the individual, however, managing your productivity is a little less complicated. That’s not to say that it is always simple. Typically, the best way to improve productivity is to improve time management. How does one go about changing their behaviors to improve their productivity? Let’s take a look at a couple of ways.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Is Your Business Prepared to Deal with Coronavirus?

Is Your Business Prepared to Deal with Coronavirus?

World events have always had a big impact on the banks that one finds on Wall Street, but in many ways, the one that coronavirus (COVID-19) has demonstrated has been unprecedented. As such, it almost provides a case study of the importance that disaster recovery planning has for any business… Wall Street institutions included.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Biometrics Has a Privacy Problem

Biometrics Has a Privacy Problem

The inclusion of biometric security systems have been all the rage in a range of organizations, due, in large part, because of the thought that other security platforms aren’t nearly as secure. Unfortunately, the superior security they are expecting may not be able to meet their expectations. Today, we will discuss biometric security, where it fits, and how it can be problematic for the small business. 

0 Comments
Continue reading

Understanding IT Acronyms You Hear in the Office

Understanding IT Acronyms You Hear in the Office

Technology can be complicated, and it doesn’t help when all you hear is an alphabet soup of acronyms used to describe it. As professionals, this kind of jargon has become a second language to us and it is easy to forget that not everyone will recognize these acronyms. For your reference, we’ve assembled some common ones you’ll probably hear us use.

1 Comment
Continue reading

Is Your Workforce Engaged?

Is Your Workforce Engaged?

Today, there is a lot to consider about how businesses handle mobility. Think about it, today it isn’t surprising when someone pulls up work-related content on their phone outside of work hours. It’s just part of their job. This shift is relatively new, and needs to be examined to see if the pros outweigh the cons for the employee, but also for the business.

0 Comments
Continue reading

How to Create Cybersecurity Policies for Your Company

How to Create Cybersecurity Policies for Your Company

If you’re in business today, there are three words that are critical for you keep in mind: Cybersecurity. Is. Important. As such, every business needs to have taken the time to put together a cybersecurity policy--a set of guidelines that instruct the business how to proceed with the highest level of security possible. We’ve taken the liberty of suggesting a few guidelines for your business to follow as you do so.

0 Comments
Continue reading

Mobile? Grab this Article!

QR-Code dieser Seite