Employers who decide to implement remote working need to find the right way to roll out and manage the process in practice.
When asked about employer policies and perceived attitudes to remote working, the survey results were mixed; almost a third (32%) of employees said they are simply not allowed to work remotely at all.
There’s also the issue of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD); one of the biggest industry buzzwords a few years ago but which appears to have fallen from favour recently.
Almost half (48%) of workers reported that they are not permitted to use their own device to work.
Security could be one of the main reasons that employees are not allowed to use their own device.
For example; a lack of anti-virus software could present a back-door for hackers to gain access to not only that device, but also the rest of the business.
In the GDPR era, the risks of having unprotected business and customer data on personal devices are huge.
The threat is wider than just the device too, with remote and flexible working posing a multitude of potential security threats.
UK Government employees lost more than 600 laptops, phones and USBs in the last four years 2 and device theft is also an issue, along with the use of an insecure/compromised public Wi-Fi hotspot.
However, the survey suggests employers must make the lines much clearer; more than nine in ten (92%) workers said they consider security as their employer’s responsibility – a figure rising to 96% for employees in the charity sector.
In fact, more than a third (38%) believe that security is fully the responsibility of their employer – suggesting they completely disregard the potential security threats.
At the same time, the IT department faces a balancing act between productivity and security. More than two fifths (42%) said security measures make it somewhat difficult to do their job.
Organisations are likely to already be aware of these challenges, as our 2018 CIO survey revealed that almost nine out of ten (88%) CIOs are concerned that a growing mobile workforce presents an increasing number of security challenges.
These fears are now underlined from a worker perspective, which means it’s becoming increasingly crucial to take action.