Since health safety guidelines changed the workplace, many employees have experienced what they had only read about before: the benefits of remote work. Their employers, on the other hand, are losing sleep over compliance.
Remote Work Compliance Issues Won’t Go Away
From shuffling Excel spreadsheets in sweatpants to having more time every day for the people who matter the most, there are many reasons why a large percentage of employees are in no rush to return to their offices. In fact, the International Workforce Group (IWG) polled 15,000 people in 80 countries and discovered that 83 percent of respondents would turn down a job offer that didn’t include flexible working. The kicker? The survey was conducted before the outbreak of the pandemic.
But as attractive as they are, remote working arrangements aren’t without their challenges, especially when it comes to compliance. And since such arrangements are now the new normal, employers need to familiarize themselves with the most common compliance issues faced by their employees and learn how to overcome them.
Data Privacy Issues
One of the biggest compliance issues with remote work is that it causes sensitive business data to be scattered across many locations and devices. Ensuring that the data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands then becomes about as easy as keeping a toddler away from the sandbox. To complicate things even more, remote employees lose the ability to discuss important issues in person, behind closed doors. Instead, they have to rely on telecommunications applications like Zoom, Skype, or Microsoft Teams, which need to be check for compliance and protected against snooping. Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution that effectively addresses all of the data privacy issues at once. Organizations need to implement a multi-pronged approach consisting of policy changes, proactive monitoring, and ongoing employee training.
Cybersecurity Issues
Just like wolves, modern cyber criminals are hunting the weakest prey. While such prey may not yield the biggest rewards, its supply has become virtually limitless since millions of employees across the country left their closely guarded office networks for run-of-the-mill home networks. Phishing emails, impersonated telephone calls, brute force attacks, Wi-Fi snooping, and fake apps are just a few cybersecurity threats that most remote employees will encounter at some point.
Employees who regularly receive cybersecurity training and are equipped with the right cybersecurity tools (think end-point protection software like firewall, VPN, and two-factor authentication) are in a great position to escape without a scratch.
Time-Tracking Issues
As employees learn how to balance the immediate needs of both professional duties and at-home interruptions, staying consistently on task can be a struggle. Giving each deliverable or project its due time can be difficult to track. But fortunately, there are many time-tracking and monitoring tools that can be easily implemented to promote accurate time reporting and ensure transparency in time allocation.
For example, Hubstaff is an all-in-one work time tracker for managing field or remote teams. The tool is capable of automatically tracking the sites and apps used by each employee, and it can also capture activity levels based on keyboard and mouse usage. Other popular alternatives include Time Doctor, RoboHead, and ProofHub.
Comply Not Complicate
The compliance issues associated with remote work are anything but simple but implementing the solutions to overcome them doesn’t have to be complicated. All you need is to partner with a managed services provider (MSP) capable of providing the power and security of a full-scale IT department for less than a single salary. At Help Desk Cavalry, we do just that end-to-end solutions that cover your remote as well as in-office workers. Contact us today for more information about how we can help on your remote work compliance journey.