It is hard to believe but it has been about 18 months since we were last all on campus. Whether you are thrilled to be amongst students and colleagues or pining for the solitude of your dining room table, you will have developed different work habits while you were working from home.  Now is the time to dust off those old habits again. To help you get back on track, I have a few helpful tips.

Lock your screen

Yes, I know that I was teaching people to keep locking their screens when working from home. However, I know most of you didn’t consider the kids, your spouse or the cat a big threat. Now that we are back, it is time to develop that habit again. When you stand up from your machine, lock it.  If you are in a hybrid work situation, keep up that habit when you are home so you don’t forget when you are on campus.

Watch for tailgaters

Don’t let people you don’t know sneak in behind you into a secured area. If a stranger has forgotten their OneCard, send them to security rather than let them in with yours. With everyone masking up again, it is harder to verify someone is who you think they are. If you aren’t sure, send them to security.  If you have a visitor coming to campus, meet them outside secured areas and then accompany them to the appropriate office or meeting room. Do not leave guests unaccompanied in a secured area.

Don’t let others use your credentials

If you have guests coming on campus, have them bring their own laptop and connect to MRvisitor rather than logging into a workstation for them. If you are training someone new, contact the Service Desk to get them access to what they need rather than logging into an application for them.  Your credentials are for your use alone, not the other 114 people who want to access the network.

Keep storing documents on Google Drive

Even though we are now back at our workstations, it is impossible to know if sometime in the future we will have to return to working from home. Make your life easier, continue to store your documents containing non-sensitive information on the Google Drive. That way you won’t have to scramble should we suddenly get sent home again.