Modern Workplace Journey
Working with UNITY Tek has changed the way we approach organization, communication, and efficiency in the workplace and even collaborating with partners. On October 16, 2019, we were invited along with other local United Ways to participate in a United Way Worldwide-hosted webinar. They invited UNITY Tek Systems, one of UWW’s preferred partners, to talk about their capabilities in information technology and related services they provide. Listening to UNITY Tek Systems’ team, I felt comfortable answering their questions anonymously while determining whether a partnership was the right fit for us. During this webinar we learned about transforming to a modern workplace and how productivity tools can enhance collaboration between employees and external stakeholders without breaking the bank. We learned that no United Way is too small to leverage best-in-class technology while securing our data at the same time.
We are a small United Way and lacked the infrastructure to be able to collaborate in a modern and efficient way. Our shared files were all hosted on one on-site employee’s computer and shared within the office. We were using an email system that did not support mobile access or calendaring. We painstakingly maintained separate Google calendars. Our shared documents were not accessible offsite; therefore, we were required to be in office to create or edit. On top of this, our collaboration methods were antiquated and quite cumbersome. We would email several copies back and forth to work on projects with coworkers, oftentimes causing issues determining the most current version. We did not have access to a conferencing platform or instant messaging. Instead, we relied on group texts that could be lost if an employee left.
After further exploring with UNITY Tek we decided to partner with them and modernize our systems. In just 2 weeks’ time we switched from outdated methods and inconvenient digital technology to an open, collaborative and mobile platform with multi-factor authentication for an added layer of security. We now have access to our emails, calendars and files from anywhere we go and in a secured environment. They not only did the deployment and migration for us, bringing in all old emails and data files in one consolidated platform, but also helped us take advantage of Microsoft’s charity program. This meant utilizing Office 365 for a fraction of the cost. We tried to explore local vendors with these capabilities and were limited to options that were too expensive, or inadequate to match our goal. Everything was done remotely, and communication was transparent, timely and professional.
Today, we have a single platform for email, calendaring, file sharing, instant messaging and audio conferencing that works seamlessly on all devices: laptops, mobile and desktops. I can create documents on my smartphone, pick up where I left off on my office computer and if need be wrap it up on my tablet. After this digital transformation, our workplace feels like a modern era now!