Area companies boost backup plans as virus sends employees home
Businesses often have a contingency plan — a Plan B — in case workers can’t get to the office when there’s a power outage, natural disaster or extraordinary circumstances, like in Chicago last winter when a polar vortex plunged temperatures far below zero.
But few companies expected their backup plans to be deployed for a worldwide pandemic.
The World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the coronavirus outbreak is officially a pandemic, and cases of the disease the virus causes, COVID-19, continue to mount in Illinois. Some Chicago-area companies are telling employees to work remotely.
But even in 2020, when many employees are equipped with the technology to be productive away from the office, preparing an entire workforce to work remotely has required extra effort.
Companies are putting additional cybersecurity measures in place and encouraging videoconferencing. They are questioning whether employees have the equipment they need to be productive at home. They are testing the capability of their servers as well as employees’ ability to access what they need remotely.
And they are doing dry runs. Companies including JPMorgan Chase, Morningstar and Chicagobased data and analytics startup Arity have tested or plan to test
their systems by having employees work from home a day.
“Do you really want to learn how to change a tire in the middle of the snowstorm at midnight, or would you rather practice that ahead of time?” said Emad Isaac, vice president of engineering at Arity. “If we practice ... we can see if there are shortcomings and take action.”
The tests are becoming increasingly critical in Chicago, where the list of coronavirus-related closings and cancellations grows longer by the day.
A worker in Prudential Plaza, one of the city’s largest office complexes, tested positive for COVID-19.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a statewide disaster proclamation on Monday, and by Thursday afternoon, the state’s total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases had grown to 32.
JPMorgan Chase offices in Chicago began testing remote working capabilities about two weeks ago, said Brian Marchiony, a New York-based spokesman.
The test already came in handy.
On Wednesday, the company notified employees in the New York metro area that 25% to 50% of team members who can work from home should do so by March 13.
The company already had split its New Yorkbased sales and trading desks into three offices, with about half the employees relocating to New Jersey and Brooklyn.
“Dividing our workforce into different locations improves our ability to serve clients continuously while reducing the health risks associated with physical contact should a case arise,” the bank said in a memo issued to employees last week.
Marchiony said splitting up the sales and trading operation ahead of any widespread coronavirus outbreak was a precautionary measure, mostly because it would be difficult for those employees to work remotely.
“It’s much harder to do sales and trading from home, both from a technology and controls perspective,” Marchiony said. “So we decided to do it a bit earlier.”
Google parent company Alphabet on Tuesday recommended employees at its North American offices work from home if they can until April 10, including the more than 1,000 workers at its Chicago office. The offices remain open to workers whose roles require they be on-site.
Preparing to suddenly have the entire workforce out of the office is not a novel concept. Many companies already have a disaster plan or a business continuity plan.
Firms need to be ready if a hurricane, tornado, or even a polar vortex strikes and employees can’t get to the office.
But coronavirus poses an unprecedented threat because no one knows how long it will last, said Jeff Borello, CEO of Lockportbased Andromeda Technology Solutions.
“About the closest thing we’ve had was a power outage that lasted for like a day and a half,” he said. “You always just think, ‘OK, the power’s going to come back on soon.’”
Andromeda, which provides information technology services to its clients, is working with Chicago-area companies to make sure they’re prepared to have everyone working remote. That involves setting employees up with a virtual private network, or VPN, routing office calls to cellphones, and forwarding mail.
If companies’ internet connections won’t be able to handle the data transfer required when employees work remotely, they may need to work with their provider to increase it, Borello said.
“Sometimes that takes a week and sometimes that takes a month,” he said. “They may have to choose who’s critical and who’s not.”
Insurance startup Clearcover has told employees they can work remotely if they prefer, and is requiring those who take domestic flights, even for personal travel, to work from home for two weeks.
“It’s not about them, it’s about the 75 other people in the office,” said Vikki Caruso, senior vice president of people at Clearcover. “You could be contagious without showing any symptoms, so it’s not worth it.”
The Chicago-based company is offering to pay to upgrade employees’ home internet package if it’s not fast enough, Caruso said. It also increased its plan with Zoom, a video conferencing company.
Clearcover also halted office visits from vendors and job candidates.
“Unless they’re coming from a state with zero cases, we’re doing everything via video,” Caruso said.
Alice Patel has been working from her Wicker Park residence since the beginning of March. Patel, who is senior director of communications at Clearcover, is pregnant, and didn’t want to risk exposure to the coronavirus during her commute.
Patel, 33, put her cellphone number on her profile on instant messaging platform Slack, and made sure her computer was up to date. Clearcover allows employees to occasionally work remotely, and in hindsight, that was good preparation.
“If your computer is glitchy and you’ve been putting it off, go ahead and make the appointment with IT,” she said.
Having employees work from home means companies might need to step up their cybersecurity measures, said Karl Sigler, senior security research manager for Trustwave SpiderLabs.
Many organizations have strict perimeters around their network in an office environment, he said. The company has control of computers and can lock them down in the event of a hack or malware infection.
“Once you have people start working from home, there’s a lot of problems that introduces,” he said.
If employees are using personal devices, companies need to make sure those devices are secure, Sigler said. Smartphones should have strong passwords, and devices should be up to date, so security patches are in place.
Remote workers are more susceptible to phishing attacks and malware installation, Sigler said. Kids or roommates might use the device and click on an infected link or open a nefarious email. Wi-Fi connections might not be secure.
Kylie Smith, an account manager at a marketing agency, started working from her Wicker Park home Monday.
Smith has an inflammatory bowel disease called Crohn’s disease, and her medicine suppresses her immune system.
“I’m trying to take extra precautions because I’m more at risk,” she said.
Her company, which she declined to disclose, allows its employees to work from home on Fridays, so Smith said she was confident making the jump from one remote day a week to five.
All the clients she works with are out of state, Smith said. She normally does video calls with them, and her daily work hasn’t been affected. Instead of messaging a co-worker now though, she’ll call them for increased interaction.
Not knowing how long the isolation could last is daunting, she said.
“I’m taking it day by day, week by week,” she said. “I’m kind of trying not to think that far out in the future.”
SpotHero closed its Loop office Friday, sending home about 200 employees, said spokeswoman Jen Holmes. The office will be closed at least through next week, though that could be extended.
Despite the uncertainty on how long this will all last, Holmes said the company is not concerned about a loss of productivity among employees. “The reality is we have people who work remotely and who are in other offices, so we’re pretty used to working in a configuration that’s half remote and half not,” she said. “Between Zoom and Slack, it feels like I’m always connected to my co-workers anyway.”
Other companies went a step further to make sure there was no lost productivity. As Chicago-based ServerCentral Turing Group planned a day to have employees work from home to test their systems, the company was clear that the day was not for slacking off.
“We want to make sure they’re working effectively,” said chief information officer T.J. Johnson.
The company plans to send out a questionnaire to employees about how the day went and what equipment they needed to be productive.
For some employees though, working remotely is not an option.
ServerCentral provides staff for two data centers in the Chicago area. The company is putting measures in place to keep those employees safe, and considering staff reductions, Johnson said.
But ultimately, they will have to keep working.
“We need to have people on-site,” he said. “There’s no such thing as working from home when you’re trying to power on and off a machine or installing hardware.”