Despite the government encouraging businesses to return to the office, many are still operating fully remote workforces. This is due, in part, to the growing realisation that working remotely has not had the negative effect on productivity that was initially feared back in March 2020, at the outset of the Covid-19 lockdown – in fact, many companies have reported an increase in productivity among their employees.
Some businesses are creating a hybrid model; enabling a combination of office and remote working. Social distancing requirements mean that few organisations can accommodate the full workforce at any one time, and some employees need to keep working remotely due to COVID-19 related issues.
A recently published BBC article outlines how “fifty of the biggest UK employers” have no plans to return to full office-based working, while a further 20 of the largest businesses have no current plan to bring any workers at all back into the office.
Some smaller firms are intending to do away with business premises altogether, acting on the positive reaction to home working from their employees. A survey carried out by Cardiff University and the University of Southampton reports nine out of ten employees that were catapulted into home working in March wanting to continue with remote working in some form, and organisations are increasingly recognising the importance of being able to offer this flexibility.
But in order to be able to do so, a business needs to ensure that their workforce has the technology to work productively, safely and securely, from wherever they’re based.
Intune is Microsoft’s cloud-based solution that enables just this, giving businesses the functionality to expertly manage mobile and desktop devices and applications from anywhere. Here are some tips to help make remotely working safe.
Encrypt all your devices
When you encrypt all your devices, you are preventing unknown access to the data that is stored on your devices. This is done by scrambling every bit of information, so it makes it hard for it to be decrypted by hackers.
Keep your operating system and software up to date
It takes on average 2 months for security issues to be disclosed to be resolved. If you want to get the security updates as soon as possible, make sure your devices have automatic updates.
Software programs can be exposed to security issues, which is why it is important to make sure they are kept up to date.
Turn on 2-factor authentication
2-factor authentication is when you use 2 different ways to identify yourself. Firstly, your password and secondly a 6-digit code (usually sent via SMS).
Be aware of phishing
Education employees about avoiding links that look suspicious and only download content from reliable, verifiable sources.
Stress-test your infrastructure
Along with having a VPN or SDP, your infrastructure should also be robust enough to be able to cope with a large volume of traffic.
We can help you develop a solution that allows your entire workforce to access to your business’s applications, data, and resources, via virtually any device, from any location, with industry-leading security controls. Contact info@bluecartechnologies.co.uk for more info.
