Directive Blogs

Remote work has proven incredibly useful over the past few years despite many employers having various concerns about its implementation. While these concerns vary, one prevalent one is how remote operations impact cybersecurity.

If you’re utilizing remote operations to any degree and aren’t concerned about cybersecurity, you must adjust this mindset and correct your approach.

IT support is essential for businesses, but traditional on-site support can be expensive and inefficient.

Thankfully, remote IT support, such as that offered through managed services, is now available. This is a game-changer for small to medium-sized businesses. Let's explore the benefits of remote IT support.

Many business owners considered allowing their employees to work from home like opening Pandora’s box; once opened, there was no going back. Unfortunately, for these administrators, they were faced with the very real prospect of losing their business if they didn’t allow it. Millions of people started working from home in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but now that public fear has diminished, how have companies reacted? Let’s discuss some remote work statistics to get an answer.

Remote and hybrid work models have become more popular than ever, in no small part thanks to the improved technology businesses of all sizes can now access. Nevertheless, this shift has brought new challenges for organizations everywhere. One such challenge is maintaining and enhancing remote workplace engagement—a crucial aspect that directly impacts employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

Mindset is important regardless of what someone is doing, but it plays an especially important part in the workplace. This only becomes more true when that workplace is distributed, and work is actually done in the worker’s home.

Let’s go into the kind of perspective you want to encourage in your team as they utilize remote work.

Do you remember a couple of years back when remote work went from being a privilege to the norm? It’s been a while since then, but many businesses have adopted hybrid or full remote operations, and as such, they are able to retain a semblance of normalcy even without the return of in-office work.

Some businesses have managed to get back to the state they were in prior to the pandemic, but there is a reason why a lot of businesses are not pushing the issue. Let’s go over some of them, and why forcing the issue with your employees is not necessarily a good idea.

The workplace has undergone a dramatic shift over the past several years in favor of remote work, due in no small part to worldwide circumstances. In fact, many workers who would prefer to work in-office found themselves unable to, pushing the button on the topic of remote work even more. While there are some outspoken companies that want to see the return of in-office work, experts in the industry seem to be of the opposite opinion.

One of the biggest arguments for remote work is that it poses environmental benefits, but how much truth is there to this statement? Today, we want to dive into the details and see if there is actually a solid benefit to working remotely—for the environment, at least. The answer might surprise you.

Remote work has seen unprecedented adoption in the past few years. While we’re all for the benefits that this trend brings, it is critical that any business that embraces remote or hybrid work does so securely.

Let’s discuss a few measures that your business can and should implement to achieve this security.

Hot desking—the workplace organization method wherein there are no assigned workstations—has an assortment of pros and cons to it, but many companies are finding the more fiscal benefits to be worth the trade-offs. Let’s explore some of the pros and cons of hot desking, and go over a few tips and strategies that will help if you choose to implement it. 

Look, we get it: remote work has become a bit of a topic of contention lately. While employees have been relishing the benefits that remote work offers them, many employers have been doing everything they can to bring their workforce back into the workplace.

Now, it wouldn’t be unfair for you to assume that we would push remote work as a managed service provider because we just so happen to assist businesses in managing it as a part of our services. This is true enough…but we aren’t the only ones with an opinion on the topic.

Remote work remains a fundamental approach to workplace operations right now. While this has led to great opportunities, remote work adds a new level of complexity to managing your employees. Let’s go over a few practices that can help make this management simpler and more effective.

By now, you’ve probably heard of VoIP—Voice over Internet Protocol—telephony. Chances are pretty good, in fact, that your business is currently using VoIP as a part of its communication. While we’re big proponents of VoIP, it is important that we acknowledge that (like anything else) some VoIP services are better than others.

Now, you may or may not have already made the transition back to the office, and this really applies more to those who haven’t yet. However, even those who have may find some utility here—specifically, in determining if a push to a full return to office was the right move.

Let’s explore how today’s employees may react to the news that remote work will no longer be an option.

Unfortunately, cybersecurity is a lot easier to reinforce in the office than it is when your team members are working remotely—and even then, it can be a serious challenge to maintain. However, let’s focus on the remote worker’s situation for a few moments and review a few best practices that can help a remote worker stay secure.

Working from home isn’t as simple as it sounds for many users. There are a lot of things to consider, ranging from comfort to security. Considering that a lot of people first started to think about working from home two years ago under duress, it’s worth looking at your current situation and determining how you can improve it.

With many people continuing to work remotely to some extent, it would be irresponsible not to acknowledge that remote work can introduce a level of risk to an organization’s cybersecurity. This makes it all the more important that this security is locked down. Let’s discuss the concept behind zero-trust security, and why it is becoming the benchmark that organizations of all sizes should meet.

The past several years have brought about a shift in the workforce, and it’s not one that anyone could have seen coming. More people than ever before are leaving their jobs. How can you keep your employees engaged so they have a minimal chance of leaving their position within your company?

While remote work has been a relatively new option for many businesses currently using it in their operations, it has already shown considerable benefits. Having said that, it would be incongruous of us if we didn’t also acknowledge one glaring issue that remote work has helped to foster: a sense of disconnect in many of those making use of it.

It’s quite possible for employees to overwork themselves, even in a remote environment. Let’s take a look at some ways that you can minimize remote overwork for your employees, especially as the boundaries typically set in place by the morning commute are eroded and work/life balance blurs.

For many businesses (and employees), remote work has been a godsend, while proving its value and efficacy as a viable means of productivity… particularly when certain health crises make gathering in the office an unsafe prospect. Recently, businesses have adopted somewhat-hybridized approaches to their work processes. While this is clearly a wise move for the business, it also opens the door for some otherwise unprecedented challenges.

Remote work has become a major part of modern business operations for a great many companies, but there is also a difficulty that frequently comes into play with remote work: the phenomenon of overwork. Let’s review some tips to help minimize the risk of overwork as people continue remote work.

Many, many companies have adopted remote work policies and practices since the COVID-19 pandemic forced most to downsize (if not cease outright) on-site operations about two years ago. Now, as we enter 2022, it seems a good time to reexamine the security that we have protecting our businesses and the workers currently operating remotely.

If you’ve been mostly working from a laptop these last few months, you’re probably noticing that it’s a little harder to be as productive with only one screen, especially if you were used to having two at the office. If you’ve already looked into getting a second screen for your laptop, but your laptop doesn’t have a port, you aren’t actually out of luck!

With so many companies having successfully made use of remote work for so long, there has been some worry that this extended means of operation will have a detrimental impact on company culture. Let’s discuss why this is something to avoid, as well as how to avoid this withering of your team’s collective working relationship.

Remote work has been embraced over the past two years, in no small part due to the impact of the pandemic. However, some of the impacts of remote work have made it clear to many businesses that its advantages shouldn’t be sacrificed once it is no longer necessary. Let’s review how businesses can improve by continuing the practices of remote work, even after the need for remote work has passed.

It is undeniable that businesses have increasingly been relying on technology. The past year has been especially digital as millions of people were working remotely. Many of these people required some type of technology support. Today, we are going to discuss how companies like ours were able to provide comprehensive IT support to so many people while they worked from home.

Remote work is often lauded for its various benefits—and don’t get us wrong, there are certainly plenty of them to account for. However, it must also be said that remote work is far from perfect. Take the environmental impacts it can have, for instance. Let’s discuss how working from home can prove better for the environment, while also addressing the serious problems it has contributed to—and, just maybe, how we can help minimize some of them.

For all its benefits, remote conferencing isn’t the easiest means of doing work for many people, as many have found out through experience. With businesses quite literally forced into this approach for some time now, employees are starting to feel the toll. Let’s discuss some of the impacts that long-term remote conferencing has had, and what can be done to minimize them.

It is only too common for people to have very different personalities in the office as they do during their off hours, with different standards and practices to suit them. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that on the surface, you need to be sure that they are at least upholding the kind of security best practices that you expect of them in the office while they are at home.

With remote work becoming the norm for many businesses in their efforts to maintain operations in recent months, this potentially company-saving adoption has not been without its drawbacks. Most notably, the mental health of many employees has been impacted as teams have been working together while keeping apart, in large part because the quick conversations that happen throughout the workday have largely been eliminated.

Remote work has been on the rise for some time, even before the COVID-19 pandemic made it the safest way for a business to operate. Naturally, this makes organization a particularly crucial thing to consider, especially as public areas reopen as workspace options.

As vaccines are showing promising results, we finally seem to see a light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. While it is still early to “look back on” the pandemic (after all, we are far from out of the woods), it makes sense to look to the future and consider how the lessons we’ve learned will continue to impact us—and this is perhaps nowhere truer than in the workplace.

With remote access being so popular right now, it is important that there is an awareness of how to maintain your business’ security while utilizing it. There are a lot of steps involved in doing so. Let’s go over some of the most important considerations that you need to weigh while your office continues to work remotely.

Shadow IT is no laughing matter, despite its overly theatrical name, as it describes the rogue technology and software being used in your business without being cleared or vetted. While it has always been a problem with in-house operations, the widespread adoption of remote work has made it even more dangerous.

Many workplaces have started the processes necessary to safely return their employees to typical operations. However, this is going to involve no small amount of preparation in terms of your business’ technology and proactive planning. Let’s consider the different approaches that you could take as you resume operations in a way that helps protect your team while still enabling work to be done.

2020 has provided a stark new reality when it comes to education. While many schools across the country are trying their hardest to get students back in the classroom, the situation with COVID-19 is making it extraordinarily difficult. Students of 2020 are going to be doing some of their schooling online, there is no way around it. Today, we’ll take a look at some of the technology that is making this distance learning possible.

Since the onset of the coronavirus, many businesses have managed to sustain themselves through remote work—also commonly known as telework. While this strategy has allowed quite a few businesses to survive, it has also opened them up to security threats. Here, let’s focus on one such threat: vishing, or voice phishing.