Implementing hybrid work models allows businesses to provide a better work-life balance for employees – reducing travel expenditure, cutting commute times and allowing employees more flexibility within their schedules, ultimately leading to measurable improvements in engagement.
However, with hybrid work also comes the risk of a security breach which could leave staff feeling stressed and preoccupied with concerns regarding their own data privacy at work.
Are you doing enough to ensure your hybrid workforce is security compliant? Keep reading as we advise you on the best ways to manage security compliance within a hybrid work model.
What Are The Biggest Security Concerns In A Hybrid Work Model?
The biggest security concern in a hybrid work model is breaking GDPR compliance. Businesses must invest in cloud-based work platforms and data storage when implementing any form of hybrid work. Utilizing cloud data storage can be safe and could even improve productivity, but if companies don’t take necessary precautions, staff may be left with warranted privacy concerns.
If you break GDPR compliance, you might lose the good faith of your clients and stakeholders, as well as contribute to the mental workload shouldered by employees. You may also be faced with legal repercussions and considerable fees. For example, in 2017 the credit bureau giant Equifax was ordered to pay $425 million in damages to staff and customers affected by a serious data breach, with some of that payout attributed to stress experienced by employees.
A strong security structure will ensure this doesn’t happen and that, if a data breach should occur, it does not negatively impact business health, productivity or employee engagement.
Ensuring Security Compliance With A Hybrid Workforce
When implementing a hybrid work strategy, staying aware of the latest trends and developments in the security sphere is essential to ensure that staff and customers feel protected. Below are some of the best modern tools, trends, and technologies designed to support hybrid workforces.
Investing In Cloud-Based Security Technologies
Cloud-based technologies are essential in a hybrid work model – they facilitate remote management, communication, and collaboration. When system administrators work remotely, they still need insight into your security procedures. Even if your security personnel is working full-time in the office, having multiple eyes on these processes helps staff to focus on their roles.
Cloud-based security technologies allow all high-level employees and system administrators to stay up-to-date with security from anywhere, reducing the need for staff to manually check for relevant updates which could draw focus and engagement away from essential daily tasks.
With cloud-based access control and RFID door locks, on-site interviews and appointments can still be instigated easily by remotely granting access to visitors. Promoting remote security management in this way can help to reduce the need for managerial staff to visit the office unnecessarily, ultimately allowing for more time to be spent on essential operations.
Integrating Cyber And Physical Security
With the adoption of cloud-based management, cyber and physical security measures can be converged. When utilizing cloud storage for data security, IT and cybersecurity teams can easily view both physical and cyber security threats, with alerts programmed to improve productivity.
Security threats can affect both your physical and cyber security in the following ways:
- An unauthorized user might access your property, compromising on-site digital resources and preventing staff from fulfilling their roles
- A cyber attacker might infiltrate your cloud-based management platform to disarm your physical security system and initiate a security breach
- Unauthorized employees and building users may access restricted areas to gain access to sensitive data
To prevent these occurrences from impacting operations and contributing to a lack of engagement, it’s essential to ensure your cyber and physical security teams are coordinated.
One threat may impact entire security strategies, which means that both teams must plan a response. By making data more accessible, you can ensure that all security teams have quick access to necessary data, helping to improve incident responses and better protect employees.
Providing Cybersecurity Training
One of the biggest threats to your business security is the potential for human error. If your employees are unaware of cybersecurity best practices, they could unwittingly cause a breach.
Cybersecurity training will help to lower this risk and ensure that all employees remain well protected and able to continue focusing on their own important work. Below are some vital elements and areas that should be covered by appropriate cybersecurity training procedures:
- Password health – employees need to know about password health and the importance of choosing strong, unique passwords for company accounts. Data suggests staff waste 30% of their time resetting passwords, so consider implementing password management software to provide potential breach alerts and to help staff choose strong passwords
- Spotting malicious activity – employees should be informed of how to spot malicious attempts to harvest personal information, social engineering breaches such as phishing scams cost the average business over 65,000 hours per year in lost productivity, so it’s essential that teams are taught how to spot and avoid these types of cyber attack
- Performing software updates – outdated software presents a security risk, exposing loopholes and vulnerabilities that could be easily resolved via patches. Additionally, outdated technology has been shown to cost businesses up to $1.8 billion a year in wasted productivity, so consider implementing automated cloud-managed updates
Implementing Zero Trust
In a hybrid work model, there is a significant risk that your data will be exposed to hackers if an employee’s at-home network or device is compromised, leading to serious data breaches and related reductions in employee engagement. Implementing zero-trust policies helps to mitigate this risk by granting employees role-based permissions, meaning they can only access whichever company resources they need to perform essential tasks and nothing further.
This way, if an employee’s home network or device is breached, only a limited amount of company data will be compromised, allowing tangential staff and departments to continue working unimpeded by a relatively contained data breach.
Summary
Implementing a hybrid work strategy can significantly benefit your business, improving productivity, job satisfaction, and more. However, to do this requires an increased focus on adopting modern security solutions, strategies, and tools. Consider the security practices in this post and whether they would facilitate your transition to a more engaged hybrid work model.
