As we are living in a fast-paced world of technology, we pride ourselves with the ability to smoothly adapt to any environment. Any kind of crisis in our modern past has turned to technology to find a remedy or alleviate the cure. This, of course, can be possible when one equipped with the right tools and management systems.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is drastically changing the way we go about our daily lives. With the mounting restrictions that come with it, the pandemic is making companies, businesses, and institutions scramble for viable measures that their employees need to take in order to conveniently work from the safety of their homes. Addressing the issues that come with such a quick change can take a toll on both an organization’s productivity and security, so most have the option to turn to MSSPs to retain these vital concerns in a fast and efficient way.
Work from home boosts productivity.
A two-year Stanford study shows that working from home gave an outstanding productivity boost among a chosen study group. Employees found it less distracting to work from home, took shorter breaks, had fewer sick days, and took less time off. This is in addition to saving time from long commutes to work and reducing carbon emissions. Read this “17 Work from Home Hacks” from Buzzfeed and this Remote Work Survival Kit might help!
Check out this video from Harvard Business Review as they share tips on how you can do *real* work at home!
For large and modern tech companies, they may already have the infrastructure needed for remote working to take place, and most of their staff members are already be equipped with their own devices. But for smaller companies and organizations, this might not be the case. Their options for remote working might also have been restricted only to chosen employees and limited only to a few operations.
Noting the urgency that the pandemic has caused and without having to cut in productivity, there are a few basic requirements one must have when working remotely from home. One can ideally achieve a computer, a good internet connection, conference applications, a workspace, self-motivation, strict discipline, and a routine to keep you on track.
How can MSSPs (Managed Security Service Provider) help?
With all these said and done, companies and organizations need to prepare themselves for the increased cybersecurity risk associated with remote working. An MSSP can help you achieve maximum productivity by monitoring the health of any of your IT assets connected to the internet. Therefore, enables them to directly support your employees from anywhere. Workers can then have a secure connection to access systems and networks. When the need arises, we can deploy software as needed, to adapt your changing working styles.
Prioritizing your security.
Prioritizing security is an MSSP’s main goal. As employees would be exposing company devices to greater risk compared to when they were confined to the security of the workplace. An MSSP can help create measures that can minimize the risk of losses of your intellectual property and private data. To provide this, your provider ensures that the employees working from home have their devices secure before accessing company data. This is done by standardizing basic security across the workers through the deployment and management of antivirus solutions. Upgrading and enforcing physical security such as passwords are also good measures, in addition to setting inactivity timeouts and other standard security applications.
Equipping you with the tools you need.
With the influx of users switching to remote work, the demand for tools increases. Another important role an MSSP has is to provide you with correct and time-efficient tools without the risk of depleting productivity. This can be done by directly rolling out applications to remote devices across your organization while providing assistance for any failures that may occur. With employees having more freedom and having the risk of being distracted by COVID-19 related disinformation, an MSSP can assist you to help identify and uninstall counter-productive software that your employees may encounter. This makes sure that sensitive information is not transmitted outside the system. Access to these devices also means that the MSSP must make sure that correct permissions and log-in methods are used to verify that those who access these devices are the assigned employees.
Monitoring your safety from a distance.
IT issues that arise from the remote workers are inevitable. But you don’t have to worry. An MSSP has the capability to serve you by consistently monitoring the productivity and health of your remote assets. An MSSP will keep you updated on the issues the employees encounter that may need attention and support. Through remote access, an MSSP can take direct control of an IT asset and perform hands-on remedies or walk the end-user through fixing the issue. This ability of an MSSP to support users is essential to ensure smooth operations especially at this time when users are quarantined because of community and health safety guidelines. Remote workers should also have clear communication protocols in place for IT support and crisis management.
Ultimately, MSSPs can help you usher in the new work revolution.
The potential long-term impacts of the pandemic are still mysterious to us, but as we know, it involves major changes in human society. One of these is the increase in remote work, which is causing the “revolution in working from home”. Employees need proper guidance and assistance so they can adapt to their environment. And MSSPs, together with partner organizations, need to work together to keep everyone safe and productive. We are now at least equipped with the basic yet necessary capabilities to ensure the proper implementation of this new trend. Through securing both our own environment and our work, the future is ahead of us for what more we can discover and innovate to make the transition to telecommuting easier.
