In 2020, most British businesses moved their staff to remote working in a matter of days. They did it out of necessity, without proper infrastructure, without security policy, and without any expectation that it would last.
For most businesses, it lasted. In a modified form, at reduced frequency, with more flexibility than before, remote and hybrid working is now a permanent feature of how many British companies operate.
The IT infrastructure that was thrown together in 2020 is, for a significant number of those companies, still in place. Unchanged. Unreviewed. Running on the assumption that this is a temporary arrangement that will eventually resolve itself.
It will not resolve itself. Hybrid working is structural. Your IT needs to reflect that.
The specific problems vary by business, but the patterns are consistent. VPN access that was set up quickly and never reviewed for security or capacity. Personal devices being used for work email because issuing company hardware in a hurry was not feasible and the arrangement quietly persisted. File sharing through personal Dropbox or Google Drive accounts because the company’s own storage system was not accessible from home. Video conferencing on consumer-grade broadband connections that were never assessed for suitability.
None of these arrangements were designed. They were improvised. And improvised infrastructure has a way of becoming permanent through inertia rather than through any deliberate decision that it was fit for purpose.
A proper review of your remote working IT provision should cover device management, VPN or secure access architecture, file storage and sharing policy, communication tools and licences, and the broadband and connectivity picture at each remote location. That last point is more important than most businesses acknowledge. An employee working on a residential broadband connection with no backup is a single point of failure for every client call, every internal meeting, and every deadline that person is responsible for.
If your remote working IT was designed in a crisis, it was designed for a crisis. A stable hybrid working model deserves infrastructure that was designed for stability.
IT Works reviews and upgrades remote and hybrid IT infrastructure for businesses across the Midlands and nationally. If you want to understand what your current setup actually looks like, https://it-works.co.uk