Coping with life during Covid brings its challenges, demanding flexibility and in some cases, actual transformation. IT departments are no exception. The number of remote workers is mushrooming, and the advent of hybrid workforces, employees working part time in the office and part time remote, is changing the faces of organizations everywhere.
So, how are IT departments handling this workplace cultural shift? What are the challenges your IT Department is facing, and can it ramp up to meet them?
SUPPORT
Addressing more than technical issues, IT must now provide a wider range of support. Having remote workers often means they work flexible hours, too, demanding greater IT support coverage. A good user experience in this “new normal” also requires the availability of a variety of communication tools. Working with both employees and management, the IT department must find, install, and maintain these tools for use by remote employees.
In addition to providing and maintaining software tools, IT departments must ensure employees can access their necessary work environments using the appropriate bandwidths. In some situations, IT may need to move employees to cloud-based environments to support their collaboration needs.
SECURITY
IT infrastructure must provide heightened security for all remote endpoints as well as enable employees to collaborate on distributed work securely. Often provisioning hardware for home-based employees, IT must also support that equipment remotely while maintaining high standards of data security.
Hybrid workforces have become attractive beyond the immediate need; organization structures where some employees work from a central office part of the work week may become the norm. IT departments partner with facilities managers in employing modern technology to support “touchless” building/room access systems and monitor the sanitizing of shared equipment before and after each use.
IT departments may also support the “hoteling” feature of a hybrid work environment, where employees reserve a workspace for a period of time. Ensuring proper equipment is present as well as supplying an application to capture reservations falls on the responsibility of the IT Department.
With the sudden appearance of the pandemic, you do not have the luxury of gradually incorporating the new technology, IT support, and infrastructure security demanded by the needs of so many remote workers. Not all IT teams can ramp up to meet these challenges. Consider partnering with a professional IT consulting and management group who can transform, support, and effectively maintain the IT infrastructure your remote workforce needs.