Why remote work is here to stay and its challenges. How business adapted to employees and departments working decentralized locations.
When the pandemic started, a lot of changes came into people’s lives overnight, one of them being the work from home or remote working. As much as it brought some positive aspects in business, it also had a lot of negative implications on people in those companies, as mentioned in the ExpressVPN’s survey.
Today, remote work is an opportunity for businesses to undertake transformations in order to adapt and strengthen themselves. It also implies a change in the prevailing culture in many companies, by focusing on efficiency in achieving objectives, and not on the time dedicated by the worker to do that task.
Companies today face the reorganization and cohesion of their departments, through the management of remote work; and to do so, several points must be taken into account that can make this environment more complex, such as discovering a business model that thrives with a mobile workforce.
To take on this challenge, cohesive teams must be assembled to achieve growth objectives, even when distributed across different physical locations. The key to success lies in finding the right people who can innovate and move toward profitability. To do this, the company will probably need to invest more in recruiting and pay more for this type of talent; salary costs will be higher, but so will overall profitability.
Another important aspect of this will be the need to foster employee recognition and happiness from afar. Remote work can hinder employee motivation and satisfaction, so it is important to make all staff feel part of the team. Without the social aspect of work, employees can feel lonely, unsupported and disconnected.
And another challenge of remote work is the urgent need to address employee trust and privacy concerns. The success of the business depends directly on its people, and any transition must be conveyed in a transparent manner to address privacy issues and avoid confusion and lack of trust.
This is why the use of employee monitoring is so controversial, as the results of the previously mentioned ExpressVPN survey proved, these practices allow access to browser history and online activity, view messages sent through social networks, and the amount of time spent on them, track workers by GPS and even monitor them through video surveillance.
Another problem lies in the fact that these tools seriously affect the privacy of workers in the broadest sense; hence the aim is to have an impact on other guarantees such as data protection or the inviolability of the home. In the first place, it is advisable to have the equipment updated with the latest security patches and to have a good antivirus. It is also necessary to control the dependence on e-mail, which is sometimes used for identity theft purposes.
Companies have to provide solutions, for example, the security team of the entity with which they work must support workers and prepare them for the future, to prevent phishing attacks, ransomware, etc. Similarly, they must anticipate the needs of employees to prevent them from manipulating consumer-level messaging applications that can create unnecessary security risks. Solutions include the use of enterprise-grade messaging applications that allow audit trails. Also a good practice when working from home is to use a VPN.
Identity controls are another cybersecurity tool, and this involves controlling session lengths, establishing two-factor authentication and domain claiming. The goal is to ensure that only authorized persons has access to information. In addition, devices must be controlled, and those that are rooted, jailbroken or obsolete must be blocked. In this regard, it must be ensured that only equipment approved by the company is used.
Undoubtedly, remote work is here to stay. The trends themselves confirm that if you want to be competitive and profitable you must apply this formula, based on the flexibility of professionals in their jobs, prioritizing their safety and satisfaction, and also in the development of new working models, in conjunction with technological innovation.
This will require facing the many challenges presented by this opportunity, because it is essential to change mentality and understand that learning about aspects such as cybersecurity and new labor rights will increase professional skills in this highly digitalized world.