How to provide the collaboration tools and security your remote workforce needs to boost productivity, increase efficiency, and improve the hybrid working experience.
Introduction by Ron Temske, Vice President – Cybersecurity, Network and Collaboration Solutions, Logicalis US
We’ve Gone Remote
What began as a rushed response to the pandemic – asking workers capable of working remotely to do so until it was safe to return – has become a more permanent mandate for many organizations. A recent Gartner survey of company leaders across an array of professional services industries asked respondents about their companies’ plans for flexible working after COVID. Perhaps surprisingly, 82% of respondents plan to allow employees to work remotely “some of the time,” with 47% responding that they would allow employees to work remotely “all of the time.”1 Another recent remote work study conducted by PwC demonstrated that working home during a pandemic had changed the minds of many executives about the efficacy of remote working, with 55% of respondents stating they planned to allow most of their workforce the flexibility of working remotely at least one day per week. Employees are even more enthusiastic with the survey showing that 72% of office workers would like to work remotely at least two days per week.2
This also tracks with Global Workplace Analytics surveys taken prior to the COVID crisis that repeatedly showed 80% of employees want to work from home at least some of the time, and the research says they could, with 56% of the U.S. workforce (75 million people) currently in a job that is at least partially compatible with remote work.3 Now that they’ve tested the #RemoteForever waters, employers are rethinking the traditional ways in which work can be done, and according to Global Workplace Analytics, they are assessing the potentially positive impact on their bottom lines: A typical employer, the firm says, can save about $11,000 per year for every person who works remotely at least half of the time.4
Clearly, we have entered the Age of Remote Working and there is no turning back. Now that we aren’t rushing, but actively considering and implementing remote working policies and procedures, it’s time to step back and consider how to provide the collaboration tools and security your remote workforce needs to boost productivity, increase efficiency, and improve the hybrid working experience.
In this eBook, we will discuss ways you can begin Fostering Collaboration in Today’s Remote World, which is important when re-connecting a distributed and disconnected workforce, as well as How to Manage Security at the Enterprise Edge, which is where your virtual remote workforce has become physically located.
Guidelines & Technologies for Remote Working the Right Way
Let’s begin by considering a set of suggested guidelines for both your remote workforce and your organization. Making technology selections that provide your organization with a return on remote investments (RROI) should be a guiding principle as you review, demo or pilot various solutions. Organizations that have moved past the Rush to Remote stage are now looking at remote working as an opportunity to rethink the workplace and their competitive landscape.
Your Organization’s Expectations for a Remote Workforce
Your remote workforce should conduct their days the same when working remotely as when on-premise in your office or at a branch location. They will need to establish routines for when they will check in with colleagues, clients, partners, and vendors. They should be able to contribute to organizational goals and to provide insights into how they can improve the organization and help make it more competitive, agile and growth-oriented. Does this sound familiar? It is the type of thing that most organizations tend to expect of their employees when they are working on premises. Working remote is no longer something reserved for some executives; it’s something that everyone does now.
Your Remote Workforce’s Expectations for Your Organization
Your remote workforce expects that your organization will provide them with the tools they need to remain connected, engaged and productive so they can excel as they complete their daily activities, respond to customers, blow through sales quotas, and innovate new streams of revenue for the business.
They expect that they will be able to connect with colleagues, clients, partners, and vendors at the push of a button or click of a link. They want you to help them be responsive to market changes, provide top-tier project management to clients, and adopt a flexible, real-time business model that now incorporates their new remote locations. And now you can stop calling them and everything they do “virtual” just because they are located beyond the traditional corporate walls. On-premise or work-from-home is all the same now.
Collaboration, then Security
In the following articles, we will discuss collaboration and security tools, each of which are critical as you create a strategy that will allow you to extend your office to the edge of the network in the most secure way possible. And now that the Rush to Remote is over, it really is important to create a strategy that takes into account all the recommendations in this eBook before beginning your journey to the remote edge so that the idea of Secure Collaboration remains firmly in mind.
After you read the articles, we hope you will reach out and connect with one of our expert team members who can assist you with that journey. Uncertain times call for agility and effective communication – and guidance from a team that is right by your side every step of the way. You will find that team at Logicalis.
Click here to read the full ebook.
- Gartner Press Release: Gartner Survey Reveals 82% of Company Leaders Plan to Allow Employees to Work Remotely Some of the Time
- PwC: When Everyone Can Work from Home, What’s the Office For?
- Global Workplace Analytics: Work-At-Home After Covid-19 – Our Forecast
- Global Workplace Analytics: Survey Reveals 76% of Global Office Workers Want to Continue Working from Home post-COVID-19