• Email Address: hello@greenkeyllc.com
  • Phone Number: 888-368-5336
Submit Your Resume

Laptops In Short Supply As More Of Us Work From Home

06Jun
Green KeyWorklife

Add laptops to the list of products shoppers have been scooping up.

The Wall Street Journal says so many people are working from home that there’s been a run on computers, depleting supplies that already were limited because of the slowdown in PC sales generally. Nor is the shortage limited to laptops or major metro areas. A Birmingham, Alabama TV station did a segment on the difficulties finding monitors in stores or online.

Compounding the situation is the closure of schools and colleges across the country with classes being held online. In homes where a single computer might have sufficed before, students and their work at home parents now need access. Cell phones and tablets with their small screens and tiny keyboards aren’t adequate for extended online work.

As recently as last week Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell told the technology site CRN.com his company was seeing strong demand for notebook computers. “That’s certainly a place where we’re seeing demand shortages because of the work from home strategy,” Dell said.

However, he said it’s not just a matter of providing a computer for every employee working at home. “There’s a lot more involved in how do you get teams to collaborative, be productive, share information and recreate the incidental communications and collaboration that occurs when people are physically together.”

Particularly in two career families where both people are working from home, and those where students are now taking classes online, having a computer for each is only the start. Old, legacy personal computers might not be up to the task of handling video and graphics effectively. If you’re going the notebook or laptop route, include a keyboard and mouse. Bluetooth ready computers and peripheral devices avoid cumbersome wires. Will you get tired of squinting at a 15″ or 17″ laptop screen? Then you’ll need a separate monitor.

How about the speed of your internet connection? What might have been adequate when only one person was online, suddenly slows to a crawl with a house full of simultaneous online users.

Shelly Palmer has a quickie guide to the issues to consider in this new, work and school from home world.

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

[bdp_post_carousel]

Related Post

Worklife
Jun 6, 2023

Updating Our Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

Worklife
Jun 6, 2023

Updating Our Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

The last several weeks have been a trying time for our nation. With so many businesses closed and all of us sheltering at home, it’s natural to be concerned about the future.

As part of our Green Key Resources community, I want you to know, as we go about filling the needs of our clients and working to ensure the health and safety of our employees, we are also looking forward to the time when the crisis is over.

When that time comes, and hopefully it will soon, we will be ready to meet the need to get everyone back to work and transition back to business as usual.

In the meantime, our entire team continues to work remotely, with full, secure access to all our systems. Though our physical offices remain closed nationwide, we’re still answering the phones, filling positions and staffing jobs.

We shared our initial steps with you two weeks ago, when the Centers for Disease Control and Preparedness declared the coronavirus a pandemic and advised all those who could to stay home:

  • We immediately transitioned all of our personnel to work from home.
  • To protect employees working in temporary positions, we contacted our clients to assist them in making remote work arrangements wherever possible.
  • We encouraged all interviews to be conducted remotely and communicated with candidates and clients about safe procedures in cases where that was not possible.

Our efforts to limit exposure and avoid in-person contact are also continuing. Recruiters are conducting interviews exclusively by video conferencing or phone. Our team is reaching out to clients, temporary employees and candidates on a daily basis to check on your well-being and offer help with remote work and staffing needs.

And because working remotely and managing remote teams is new to so many and takes a different approach, we’ve supplemented our blog with articles on the topic. We hope this offers you valuable information as you transition to this new normal.

We have also heard from many of you, particularly from those in healthcare where the need for workers is especially critical. As Brett Braterman of our healthcare division noted last week, “We are seeing a huge uptick in requests from our hospitals for staff to work in all different departments.” Our specialists are tireless in their efforts to fill the need, contacting retired professionals as well as those in less hard-hit areas

Our pharmaceutical/life sciences team is diligently working with pharmaceutical and biostat companies to ensure we continue to deliver top talent as the development and testing for drugs has become more crucial than ever. Our IT, Accounting, Finance and Office Support teams continue to support clients with their hard to fill roles and continue to be a trusted advisor on their hiring needs.

If there is any way Green Key Resources can help you, know that we want to and we’re here for you. Our main number is 212.683.1988.

This is a difficult time for our country, for our businesses, and especially for our families and loved ones, but we are all pulling together.

As we approach the holidays with Passover, Easter and Ramadan around the corner, I want to extend my personal thoughts for your health and well-being. Together we will get through these challenging times.

Andrew Chayut / Managing Partner

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

[bdp_post_carousel]

Read Continue
Information Technology, Worklife
Jun 6, 2023

Tech Writers Code In English

Information Technology, Worklife
Jun 6, 2023

Tech Writers Code In English

There’s a tech job that pays well, is growing fast and is in such demand that it’s taking employers weeks to fill an opening.

And it typically doesn’t require knowing any language besides English.

With the number of devices and applications mushrooming and their capabilities increasing just as rapidly, explaining to users how to make everything work is the job of technical writers. “They’re vital players when the time comes for a company or team to communicate its work to the rest of the world,” writes Nick Kolakowski on the Dice.com blog.

Instruction manuals are how most of us come in contact with the work of technical writers. Some technical writers specialize in writing these consumer focused materials; most write them along with handling other documentation tasks.

It may seem simple enough to describe the features of a new smartphone, but as the Dice article points out, “If the technical writer screws up, it could result in an extremely frustrated customer base — which reflects badly on the company.”

Many technical writers have a broad range of responsibilities that in the tech industry itself may include maintaining internal documentation of software fixes and new features. Often, the technical writer will work directly with an engineering team, becoming involved early in the product cycle to develop the deep understanding they’ll need to clearly explain complex features. This is especially true for those tech writers whose documentation will be used by IT professionals and engineers.

Simon Dew, a technical writer with an international firm that sells a database platform, says he writes for a technical audience because the users are database managers and developers.

It may not be a job requirement to know how to code – though there are writing jobs requiring a computer science background – all writers must be good at asking questions, be detail-oriented, understand technical concepts and write clearly.

Jacklyn Carroll, a technical writer who was an undergraduate English major who went on to earn a Master’s in professional and technical writing, says, “Any tech writer would be able to tell you that our job includes a lot more than just documentation. We have to communicate with people across multiple departments, write for a variety of audiences, and many of us have to understand programming or code at the same level as software developers.”

As a result, starting salaries can be as high as $70,000, according to Dice.com. The average for those writers with up to 2 years’ experience is $60,000. With more experience and skills, technical writers at the top can earn into six figures.

Photo by Andrew Neel

[bdp_post_carousel]

Read Continue
 
Required 'Candidate' login to applying this job. Click here to logout And try again
 
 

Answers

 

Account Activation

Before you can login, you must activate your account with the code sent to your email address. If you did not receive this email, please check your junk/spam folder. Click here to resend the activation email. If you entered an incorrect email address, you will need to re-register with the correct email address.