Empower — and protect — your hybrid and remote workforce
More than ever before, employees are prioritizing working from home over other perks. Job openings are at a record high, and a recent Ziprecruiter.com survey shows that 55% of job seekers are looking for primarily remote jobs. Plus, 11.5 million workers left their jobs between April and July 2021, and many replaced an on-premises job with a hybrid or remote work situation.
By transitioning to permanent hybrid and remote work, your organization can better attract and retain employees, increase their productivity and reduce recruiting and training costs.
You just have to make sure you have the right technology and security controls in place.
Without an established plan for your organization’s data, users may find convenient solutions on their own, such as personal cloud storage accounts like Dropbox or Gmail. These services are beyond the control of your organization and can increase the risk of a sensitive data leak.
Next steps
• Implement secure VPN connections: This allows your employees to “be in the office” when they’re off site. Furthermore, protect these connections with multi-factor authentication, which requires employees to authenticate a second set of credentials to gain access. (Example: They enter their email password and then a code texted to their mobile phone.)
• Migrate legacy file servers and applications to the cloud: Cloud-hosted data is accessible anywhere. When you migrate from physical office environments to cloud solutions like Microsoft SharePoint or Azure, you enable employees to securely access data from wherever they are working.
• Use technology such as Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams enables voice, video and text communication between users from anywhere, including laptops, mobile phones and tablets. In addition, any data or files shared by users are securely stored in Microsoft SharePoint, which is under the control of your organization.
• Implement conditional access policies and mobile device management: Solutions such as Microsoft Endpoint Manager ensure that only your trusted workers have access to sensitive data from external devices.
SOURCE: WIPFLI