Q&A With Infrastructure Engineer Brandon Strike
IT Infrastructure Engineer, Brandon Strike has worked for Bowman Riley for the past four and a half years equipping our team with the technology and tools needed to deliver first-class services to our clients.
The impact of the lockdown in March 2020 presented Brandon with the biggest challenge of his career to date. In this Q&A with our Marketing & Business Development Manager, Samantha Jevons, Brandon explains how he worked with our senior management team to ensure that Bowman Riley continued to operate productively and efficiently over the past six months or so.
Q – What were the initial IT challenges when the lockdown was announced?
A – My first priority was to make sure that all our people could work remotely. We have both laptop and desktop users. I needed to very quickly provide desktop users with a laptop, so they could remote on to their computers from home. I also needed to check people’s home internet connectivity and WIFI as a real priority. A large proportion of our team already had company mobiles, with everyone else we implemented a scheme that allowed staff to use their mobiles for business. Not everyone had printers at home and certainly, large format printing couldn’t be done at home. I ran a printing service for our team whereby I printed using the office’s facilities and delivered them to staff and local clients using the pool electric car. I had lots of support from the senior management team to make the changes we needed.
Q – As the weeks moved on, how did people’s needs change?
Bowman Riley is genuinely concerned about staff health and wellbeing, so making sure people were comfortable and supported when working at home was really important. My colleague Rebecca Jones and I organised a staff survey to ask people if they had all the equipment they needed such as extra screens especially for designers and adjustable office style chairs.
Q – How prepared was Bowman Riley in advance of the lockdown?
A – Really well prepared considering the situation was unprecedented. Our senior management team is really proactive. We have a Business Recovery Plan that we immediately activated. We already had MS Teams installed across for video calls, although not everyone had started using it yet. Lockdown was the impetus that made people really engage with video calls both internally and externally with clients too.
Q – What was your biggest challenge?
A – My biggest challenge was actually in my personal life. During the lockdown, I moved into a new house within a new residential development. There was a blockage in the line, which meant that I didn’t have WIFI for a month. A nightmare for an IT professional.
Q – What positives have come out of lockdown from a technology perspective?
A – We have proved that we can work anywhere as long as the technology supports us. Video calling is a great way to bring people together virtually from all over the UK saving both time and the impact on the environment with reduced travelling. Screen sharing is one of the best benefits according to my colleagues.
With the backing of the senior management team, I also introduced an intranet for staff with lots of useful documents and business updates and IT systems updates. It’s been invaluable and will continue to be an important staff resource moving forwards.