Washington Works Blog

Dealing with computer problems can be frustrating, especially when you’re trying to get things done. Sometimes the solutions are simple, but other times, you might need help from an IT expert. Let’s talk about some of the most common issues and how you can fix them.

If your business works with a Managed Service Provider (MSP)—an IT company that handles things like computers, networks, and security—it’s worth knowing how to get the most out of that relationship. MSPs like us can help keep your tech working smoothly, but to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth, here are three simple ways to work with us most effectively.

Sitting at a desk all day, five or more days a week can be hard on a person's body (and often their mind). Even though there isn’t much that can be done about the type of work people in these positions have, there are some things you can do to prioritize their physical and mental health. This month, we give you four tips that will help.

Of all your business’ potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities, one can more easily bring your organization to its knees than any other… but if this vulnerability is addressed correctly, you could instead see considerable benefits.

Of course, the vulnerability I’m referring to is your team itself. Human error, in its many forms, can easily leave you vulnerable if you aren’t careful about preparing yourself and the rest of your staff to act with cybersecurity in mind.

COVID-19, or coronavirus, has been a major global health concern over the past couple of months. At this point, it is clear that this disease could have serious impacts on the workplace. We wanted to provide a brief rundown of good workplace and network health practices, as well as a few pointers on how you can handle health-based employee absences.

When evaluating your business assets, it's essential to prioritize technology. Let's briefly go into the reasons why this is important and explore effective management strategies your business can roll out to improve your operations.

Back in 2022, Microsoft coined the term “productivity paranoia,” referring to the fears that many managers have that remote workers aren’t working to their full productivity. However, as remote and hybrid work has continued for many companies, a different form has emerged: the feeling a worker has that they have to prove they are still productive while working from home.

Here are some tips to share with your team, so they can use them to avoid these feelings.

We’ve seen the conference rooms of a lot of businesses, from the modified break-room with stale coffee to immaculate lecture rooms with plush, comfy seats, and everything in between.

A good conference room can do a lot to impress potential clients and customers, encourage collaboration within your team, and leave a great impression on potential employees too. While we’re not going to pretend to be interior decorators, there are definitely some important steps that we can assist with to make sure your conference room is up to the task.

Whatever your industry, there are going to be processes that need to be followed, and this will require no small amount of organization to keep all the moving parts in tandem with each other. Fortunately, tools that can help with your project management needs are readily available, so long as you take advantage of their capabilities.

Take Google Sheets, for instance.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that the better your relationship is with your employees, the more your business will benefit. Despite this, many businesses today lack trust between their organizational levels. Let’s go over a few simple tips that you can use to help maintain positive feelings amongst your team.

It doesn’t take much to get us to start ranting about the dangers of phishing, and it’s a topic that we won’t stop talking about for some time. Unfortunately, phishing comes in enough forms that it isn’t always so simple to spot. For this week’s tip, we just wanted to run through the different formats phishing can take, focusing on how to identify each type.

The holidays are fast approaching and that means people are going to miss work for one reason or another. If you can get away from the office for a little bit, you’ll want to set up an out-of-office message to ensure that others know you will get back to them when you get back to the office. Here’s how you can set up an autoresponder for an out-of-office message in Microsoft Outlook.

For small businesses, having a fast, reliable Internet connection is needed to run all the digital tools that your staff has come to depend on. If you don’t have the bandwidth in place, you can deal with bottlenecks that can ruin communications, stall productivity, and cause operational issues of all types. Today, we’ll take a look at how to determine the amount of bandwidth you need to support your business’ computing infrastructure.

At first glance, cybersecurity might seem incredibly complicated and difficult to understand, but even a baseline understanding of some of the principles of cybersecurity can go a long way toward protecting your business. Let’s discuss some of the common-sense ways you can keep your business secure, even if you don’t have an internal IT department to ask for help from.

When you run a business, solid decision making is crucial to achieving success. This goes from hiring and managing your staff, choosing the right prospects, supporting your customers, and procuring tools and resources that make your business possible. Today, technology is not only important, it is a major consideration when determining your yearly budgets. Let’s go through a couple of tips on how to make the best technology decisions for your company.

Unfortunately, cybersecurity is a lot easier to reinforce in the office than it is when your team members are working remotely—and even then, it can be a serious challenge to maintain. However, let’s focus on the remote worker’s situation for a few moments and review a few best practices that can help a remote worker stay secure.

While we’re all for efficiency, there are some boundaries that should not be crossed for everyone’s benefit. Take, for instance, the email you use to subscribe to online services. While it may be tempting (or, for some people, automatic) to use your work email address when you sign up for, say, your Netflix account or an online merchant, we wanted to discuss why this is a bad habit to get into that could have lasting consequences.

Typing on your keyboard is something that you do every day, but sometimes you just don’t want to do it. You can give your hands a break and use Microsoft Word’s dictation feature; this lets you use your voice to write in the software. Let’s go over how you might use the feature on a desktop, web browser, or mobile device.

Laptops are pretty great, I think we can all agree, simply due to their portability. Having said that, the one-screen situation that laptops bring with them can certainly get in the way of productivity—particularly for those who are used to using more than one. Let’s discuss why an additional display is so helpful, and what your options may be for hooking one up to your laptop.

It’s quite possible for employees to overwork themselves, even in a remote environment. Let’s take a look at some ways that you can minimize remote overwork for your employees, especially as the boundaries typically set in place by the morning commute are eroded and work/life balance blurs.