The effect of Covid-19 has significantly changed the work culture of many companies around the world. Before Covid-19 you could expect every office to have a typical work environment where employees would hold meetings in person, discuss about the business and work together in a friendly environment. However the world has now been forced to adapt to a virus that threatens not only the business but the people themselves. It has become a necessity for companies to now shift towards an online environment if they want to survive the economic crisis that has affected the entire world. No longer do employees meet face to face to discuss business, they now have to rely on the power of the internet to keep the business on its feet. Transitioning to an online environment certainly isn’t easy as one would think. So how do we expect companies to transition from an in-person environment to an online one?
Companies have every right to feel uneasy when stepping into the online environment, especially for one that is doing it for the first time. The security for work is at a risk as there is a lack of oversight on the employees and how the company’s data is being protected. Knowing that this transition will be tough for companies, PwC US (PricewaterhouseCoopers) which is one of the biggest accounting firms published an article that gives advisory information on work from home strategies.
These are the three essential points covered by the article:
• “Assess and control the security and control gaps in your remote work set-up.”
• “Secure the remote and distributed work models for the long term, in case it’s needed for an extended period or permanently.”
PwC stresses on the fact that communication is the key to success in a work from home environment. It is important for the company to keep in mind the challenges that every employee faces and how they can help in resolving them. Elaborating on the second point stated by PwC, it is important to keep one’s cyber security up to date, keep a track on employee practices and how they are potentially using the data. Do companies have the resources to handle outages? Are their firewalls up to date? Are the devices able to handle peak loads? These are just some of the few variables that pose as an obstacle for companies in the work from home environment.
Shifting to an online environment is definitely going to be a challenge for most companies. An article by The Economic Times states that companies will be looking to increase outsourcing on a large scale to combat security risks.
With the increase in outsourcing it will be really interesting to see how companies will adapt their SOP’s to overcome the challenges posed by the work from home life style. Covid-19 has definitely weakened the economy and created immense pressure for businesses to survive. However this can be seen as an opportunity to develop and grow as companies will find new avenues which might have seemed impossible at first. Nobody could have thought that a business could be run from the comfort of your home, but it is possible. It will be a while before businesses return to normal, but for now the best thing that they can do is communicate with their employees and resolve as many obstacles as they can.