Building for a flexible future in the digital workspace
Remote working has been road-tested on a global scale and rather than hinder productivity, some studies have found the opposite to be the case with 75% of employees maintaining or improving productivity during this time.
Many organisations are already re-evaluating their workplaces and digital workspace solutions in order to give employees choice and make flexible working a viable and secure long term strategy. Whatever the future brings, working from home is here to stay. As the employee experience can always be improved, we’ve compiled a list of 5 ‘must haves’ to help you win at remote working.
1. Simplify access with Single Sign On
Make lost passwords and employee access issues a thing of the past by implementing a single sign on policy. By layering on multi-factor authentication you can improve security and then allow access all your integral applications from a single place.
2. Continuity – at home or in the office
With recent surveys showing an overwhelming majority of employees preferring to continue to work from home at least some of the time, the flexible hybrid approach to working is here to stay. Organisations need to ensure they provide employees easy, secure and consistent access to the files, tools and apps they need on any device, from any location. For employees the user experience of working in the office or from home should be entirely seamless.
3. Centralised App Management
Put the power in the hands that need it! Deliver apps across the entire workforce, to individuals or to teams depending on role-based policies from a central point. Make delivery and management of updates and version control dependent on individual needs, roles and devices to ensure that every employee is as productive as possible, while staying up to date and secure.
4. Security
Protecting users and data is even more critical when employees are working remotely and on a mix of personal and corporate devices. Manage endpoints from a centralised location and set data policies that can roll out to entire groups in one go. Lost a device? Remotely wipe that device so that no data can get into the wrong hands and roll out policies that know whether a device is company or user owned so that personal data is protected.
5. Monitoring and Insights
Understanding your environment and analysing data is an essential part of business and enables you to gain information and insights on the system performance, usage and efficiencies. Businesses can also understand more about app, software and license utilisation.
- More than 75% of employees have maintained or improved productivity through the COVID-19 pandemic – BCG.com – (https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/valuable-productivity-gains-covid-19)
- 1/3 of help desk ticket requests are password resets – SecurityBoulevard.com – (https://securityboulevard.com/2020/02/eliminate-password-reset-tickets-to-increase-profits/ )
- 97% of employees prefer flexibility between working remotely and in an office -Forbes.com – (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashiraprossack1/2021/02/10/5-statistics-employers-need-to-know-about-the-remote-workforce/?sh=6b45740b655d)
- 58% of companies plan to combine remote and in-office work in the future – Hubstaff.com – (https://blog.hubstaff.com/remote-workers-more-productive/)
- 38% of enterprise business applications are either unused or rarely used – 1e.com – (https://www.1e.com/resources/report/software-usage-waste-report-2016/)
- 95% of breaches originate at endpoints – Internal VMware Research – (https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/infographic/vmw-remote-first-static-infographic.pdf)
- Organisations spend around £2.9M recovering from security incidents – ITgovernance.co.uk – (https://www.itgovernance.co.uk/blog/the-cost-of-a-data-breach-in-2020)
- On average companies are wasting £188 per desktop on maintaining and licensing unused software – CIO.com – (https://www.cio.com/article/3024420/the-real-cost-of-unused-software-will-shock-you.html)
NOTE: all monetary figures have been converted from US Dollars to GBP at a rate of $1.375 to £1
