Steve Redhead, Managing Director of Mother Technologies
Home Working Here To Stay
In 2020 the pandemic presented a number of business challenges – the likes of which we’d never seen before. In just a matter of months, forced through no choice of our own, home working is now recognised as a universal norm.
The vaccine roll-out throughout 2021 will see a welcome return to the office for many of us, but the proven, tried and tested ability to work successfully from home will see many companies adopting flexible home working policies.
Cutting costs and increasing sales is an obvious formula for success. Office based overheads are enormous, and if organisations can reduce or eliminate their office footprint without impacting the business then they will.
No Excuse
From a technology perspective, there are no obstacles that prevent transparent and seamless home working. I’ve actually been staggered by the number of organisations whose receptionists send an email to their colleagues requesting they call you back because they can’t put you through. There is no excuse for that today. You can take your desk-phone and deploy it anywhere. Telecom technology sees your extension in your back pocket if that’s where you want it. The pandemic and home working should not prohibit business communications when it’s so simply addressed.
Security
And so to security. Yes, this is a much bigger issue. Whatever our historical budgets, we have to increase our spend on security.
Most organisations have already invested heavily in protecting and securing their office based workers, but the firewalls and internet policies that provide blanket protection in the corporate environment are now ineffective because staff are no longer there.
Home workers are operating in very precarious and unprotected environments. This presents huge risk to their organisation, and IT departments need to take significant steps to secure all of their network endpoints.
Extending Support
At Mother Technologies the pandemic saw our support activities shift significantly from the workplace to the home where every user’s environment is different; laden with non-business related tech and extremely challenging from a support perspective. Most internal IT departments don’t have the resources to support home workers. The distributed geography is an obstacle in itself, and resolution for the difficulties they experience is often time consuming.
We have adapted throughout 2020 to ensure that home workers receive the same polished support they are accustomed to. We have also been able to revise their security policies and ensure the protection that exists in the workplace extends to all remote workers.
Take Heed
Organisations must recognise that cyber threats are extremely intelligent and advancing day by day. Redirecting workplace security spend to the network’s endpoints can go some way to offsetting costs, but our endpoints must be secured. And if you’re still struggling with communications, call your Mother!
