Grow a Remote Workforce Using IT Solutions
More than 40 million Americans will work remotely by 2026, Upwork predicts in its 2021?Future Workforce Report. In PwC’s January 2021?US Remote Work Survey, the professional services firm asked 133 US-based executives how they thought remote-based work was going. Eighty-three percent said it was working for their companies, up 10% from seven months earlier.?
We’ve seen that remote workers can still deliver results and retain accountability. Now, companies seek ways to mature the sometimes-kneejerk remote work technologies that they rushed to implement as the pandemic unfolded. Companies now need effective, secure IT solutions that can serve workforces into the mid- and long-term future as they grow increasingly remote and geographically dispersed.?
With Change Comes Risk
When we have vast change in short time, risks emerge. Spurred on by the pandemic, the remote work phenomenon is no different. Among workers who reported that their jobs could be accomplished from home in December 2020, just one in five worked from home pre-pandemic—compared to 71% nine months in, according to the?Pew Research Center.?
While remote work provides the flexibility (and sometimes safety) that workers increasingly value, the work-from-model comes with risks and exposures that are new, or at least magnified, from their pre-COVID in-office equivalents. Those risks include:
The rise of ransomware
During the pandemic, the frequency and severity of ransomware have been on the rise. According to?Unit 42?research, the average ransomware demand during 2020 reached $847,000. The increased press that these attacks receive and the growing probability that companies will pay to retrieve their data have both contributed to this rise of ransomware. Add to that the fact that much of the country’s critical infrastructure belongs to the private sector and is not subject to the US government’s cybersecurity guidelines.?
BYOD security
At the end of the workday, employees no longer log out and power down a desktop computer that sits like a brick vault on their desks until the next morning. Today, employees take their work (and your data) beyond the walls of your office and the security of your IT ecosystem. Today, employees do their jobs on laptops, tablets, mobile phones—all tools that have proliferated via BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs.?
Finding the number of endpoints for each employee on your network can quickly transform into an AP math class assignment. Each of those endpoints represents a potential vulnerability for cybercriminals.??
Cloud-based risks?
Working from anywhere we want, whenever we want only works when we can access our files. (Emailing our files around and carrying them on pen drives wasn’t going to last forever.) The convenience of cloud-based computing opens new worlds and new risks. Scammers can access, steal, and disclose your data. Data deletion becomes more than a one-step process. Data can be lost too.???
Worker cybersecurity knowledge and practices?
Sometimes cybercriminals don’t need sophisticated malware and knowledge to access your network. They just ask your users to let them in. And many times, they do.?PwC?asked more than 300 CIOs and CISOs how malware hit their systems. Half of them said through email. As part of Ignition’s services, we conduct phishing simulations with workers. So many people can’t resist those tantalizingly tempting links.?
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Ineffective device coordination, delivery, maintenance?
Getting a working laptop to a new hire is no longer a matter of Bob from IT powering on a machine from the supply closet and running it to a freshly supplied cubicle. Bob may now sit in Albany while your new hire is in Phoenix or Calgary. Regardless of where your employees work, you still need a process to onboard, support, and offboard them. You need a system for warehousing machines that are no longer or not yet in use.???
How Ignition Can Help
Cybersecurity?– Ignition tailors cybersecurity solutions to fit your budget, risk tolerance, and funding stage. Ignition’s four-point approach includes:
Laptop logistics/Onboarding automation?– Onboarding can’t take hours and days anymore. Your hire wants to contribute and you’ve got tasks that have sat undone during your recruiting effort in this employment market. Ignition has partnered with Apple, Microsoft, and Google in order to set new team members up for a successful day one in under 20 minutes—even before their new-hire coffee gets a chance to cool off.?
Ignition offers:
At Ignition, tech support is 49% tech and 51% human. When you need help, you need help—and maybe a bit of empathy. Even if you don’t like to ask for help, we’ll make your call worthwhile. When you call Ignition for tech support, you get a support engineer who has been hired because they have a good deskside manner, can articulate what they need to say, and care about seeing you through to the other side of your quandary.?
Conclusion?
The pandemic has shown us that remote work works for employers, employees, and companies. The task now turns to how to efficiently and securely grow a remote and geographically dispersed workforce. The answer depends on the IT solutions you use and how you use them.
Partner with Ignition and we’ll bring you into the new age. We’ve seen that workers and employers can produce even when they’re not in the same place. Now, we are tasked with giving them the tools they need to keep doing their jobs and doing them well.?