Are you looking into establishing a new work model for your business? Executed correctly, the right work model can come with a lot of advantages.
What’s your business’ current work model?
Over the past two years, you’ve likely engaged in some degree of remote work for your staff. Going forward, however, you may assume you’re stuck with one of two potential scenarios:
- Your entire staff returns to work in the office
- All of your staff continue to work remotely
We want you to know there’s a compromise between the two: hybrid work. It’s a middle ground between the two options and offers you the best of both worlds.
Striking A Balance Between Remote Work & The Office
The core aspect of the hybrid work model is that it lets you enjoy the benefits offered by remote work without sacrificing your in-office community.
Employee by employee, one person may prefer remote work, and the other may instead prefer to work in the office. Instead of having everyone fit into one model, you can cater to both sides.
After all, these two opposing models offer competing advantages. Remote workers have seen a number of key benefits:
- 77% of remote employees say they’re more productive when working from home
- 76% of employees prefer to avoid their office completely when they need to concentrate on a project
- 98% of remote workers want to continue to work remotely (at least some of the time) for the rest of their careers
However, for all the ways remote work is beneficial to both the organization and end-users, it’s not without its challenges. A study found that remote workers across the country encountered a series of challenges in their daily work life:
- 19% experience loneliness
- 17% have difficulty communicating and collaborating
- 8% have trouble staying motivated
So how do you reconcile these many pros and cons that come with either option? Compromise with a hybrid work model. Doing so harnesses all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of both choices:
- Employees spend a portion of their work time at home, focusing on key tasks and projects
- The remainder of their hours are in the office, where they are available for meetings and can contribute to a social company culture
That said, it’s not as though hybrid work presents absolutely no obstacles to managers and business owners…
Key Challenges Associated With Hybrid Work
The most important consideration is your technology. Security is a complicated undertaking for work models that include remote work. In fact, 36% of organizations have dealt with a security incident due to an unsecured remote worker.
Continuing with a remote work model, whether entirely or in part, will require:
- Enhancing security measures
- Providing the right hardware for users working permanently from home
- Implementing more permanent file-sharing, collaboration, and communication tools
How To Protect Your Hybrid Business
In optimizing your hybrid working model, make sure to consider the following best practices for your cybersecurity:
Identify Risks
In order to confirm your security capabilities, you need to conduct a cyber risk assessment along with a vulnerability scan of your systems. This will help you identify potential vulnerabilities, and develop the starting blocks to a secure long-term hybrid management plan.
Train Your Staff
As some of your staff will be working from home, it’s more important than ever to ensure they receive proper awareness training. Without proper supervision, they are at greater risk of compromising the security of your business data or falling for phishing scams. Make sure they understand how to maintain business cybersecurity from their home office.
Deploy Security Measures
Your hybrid environment will require a combination of threat monitoring, firewalls, and antivirus solutions. These defenses will form a comprehensive cybersecurity posture to protect your office network as well as your employees while they work remotely.
Need Expert Assistance Managing Your Hybrid IT Environment?
If you plan to continue with remote work in one way or another, you may need to change your model of IT support. As you and the other C-level executives at your business have likely discovered since the start of the pandemic, your ability to work remotely depends directly on your IT support.
We can help—we’ve developed extensive experience in helping our partners to launch, optimize and secure remote work capabilities. Now that the mad rush to go remote is over, it’s time to perfect your processes, and you don’t have to do so alone.
Get in touch with our team today to get started.
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