Models of working have changed greatly in recent times, and this has seen hybrid working emerge across many companies. Hybrid working involves staff splitting their time between a range of work environments – from working from home to time in the office or working remotely in the field. Any business owner who has managed hybrid workforces knows it can present some unique challenges.
The issues it can present to business IT infrastructures are a good example and something company owners with distributed workforces can struggle with. But what are some of the most common IT challenges hybrid working can bring, and what IT solutions for remote workers can help you address them?
What IT Infrastructure Challenges Can Hybrid Workforces Deliver?
There is no doubt that hybrid working can bring some real benefits. For businesses, it allows them to hire from anywhere and widen their talent pool.
It can also save you money on office space, as you do not need seats for everyone to use at the same time. Staff also love the idea of hybrid working and spending at least a few days per week working in a more flexible, convenient way.
Despite this, many business leaders start to get nervous when considering the IT implications of distributed workforces. This can see the following issues to take care of:
- Remote access to systems/networks/databases
- Cybersecurity compliance for remote devices
- Tracking of company IT assets
- Capability of existing IT networks to cope with remote workers’ needs
- Compatibility of IT infrastructure with mobile devices
- Review/update of IT disaster recovery plans
This is not an exhaustive list of hybrid working issues for existing IT infrastructure, but does give an idea of what questions are raised. This does not mean you should forget about distributed work models, though. It’s much better to implement effective IT solutions to support them and ensure your IT set-up can handle people working from home, the office or remotely.
What IT Solutions for Distributed Workforces Can Help?
Finding the right solutions is important to bring hybrid working into your company without negatively impacting the IT infrastructure. The following are all worth considering if you plan to start letting people work from remote settings.
Mobile Device Management
Mobile devices will likely be the cornerstone of any hybrid model you employ. This is naturally true for people who are visiting clients and use their company mobile to stay in touch. Mobile devices may also be used by office staff and certainly come in handy for staff working at home.
Mobile device management is, therefore, a major IT solution that can help with better managing distributed workforces. It enables businesses to administer all remote devices from one central place. It also makes it easy to connect, secure, and update company mobile devices in a convenient, simple way. This is a much smarter way to manage mobile devices for hybrid workers in general and helps lift the strain on your existing IT set-up.
Automated Onboarding for New Hybrid Staff
Adopting a hybrid work model may see you hiring staff who might only come into the office a few days per month or staff from overseas who might only come to see you yearly. This can present a real IT headache regarding getting them fast, secure access to all the platforms, tools and apps they need to get going.
The best solution to this problem is using automated staff onboarding services which handle all of this for you. This makes it much easier to get new staff fast access to the IT systems they need and enables you to do it in a fully remote, hassle-free way. In addition, automated services like this mean your resident IT team does not have to spend time onboarding people and can focus their time on other important tasks.
Network Optimization
Hybrid working can strain your existing IT network and ask it to operate in ways it might not always like. For this reason, looking at ways to optimize your IT network for distributed working is a great solution to consider. Specific things to think about here include:
- Increasing bandwidth to cope with demand
- Optimise WAN networks for video calls
- Review LAN networks for office-based workers
- Think about VPNs or SASE for remote workers
- Cloud-based solutions if you run on a more traditional network
Managed IT services can be useful here if you do not have an IT expert to ask about optimizing your current network for hybrid working. This allows you to get a professional opinion on how well your current network can handle distributed work and what tweaks you could make to improve things.
Cybersecurity
Top-class MSD cybersecurity is one effective IT solution you can’t ignore for distributed workforces. The cool thing for business owners here is that cybersecurity is already an issue they will be familiar with and have plans to enhance. Moving to hybrid workflows presents a few unique challenges you need to overcome – before remote workers fall victim to online criminals.
Removable device control is a good place to start. It means you decide which USB drives are authorized to be used on company devices (if any). This stops hybrid workers from using their own removable storage devices, which may have hidden viruses and present a danger to your whole IT set-up.
Web filtering is another effective IT solution for managing hybrid workers and filters out any suspicious emails before they hit anyone’s inbox. It also blocks suspicious websites and keeps your IT systems safe from remote workers accessing them.
Unleash the Power of Hybrid Workforces with Ignition IT
Hybrid workforces might sound complicated to set up and could be bad news for your IT infrastructure. However, with our IT solutions for remote workers, this does not need to be the case. Get in touch with our IT professionals today and let us make managing distributed workers with easy-to-use IT tools a cinch.