Are companies ready for telecommuting?

Are companies ready for telecommuting?

Last week we analyzed the implications of working from home from the perspective of the employee. But there’s another side to the equation: Are companies ready to have employees working remotely?

A survey by CITRIX carried out in September 2019 in Latin-American countries indicates that 39% of those surveyed were employed by companies that allowed them to work remotely, with 72% of them supplying a portable computer and 88% a smartphone. Additionally, 61% said that they could access their corporate email from any device, and 45% could save data on the cloud, but only 39% had a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that would allow them secure access to their corporate network.

Maybe that’s why it’s significant that 65% said they used nonauthorized apps to collaborate/communicate. And the two most important reasons to use these apps are productivity and convenience. Only 28% indicated that they lost information (erased), 13% had sensitive information leaked, and only 10% indicated they were hacked.

The data is even more interesting when the scope of these studies are global: according to a report from the Society for Resource Management in which almost 3,000 HR professionals worldwide were surveyed, 69% of organizations allowed employees to work from home at least part time in 2019, more than triple the amount 20 years ago. CNBC lists the 20 companies that hired the highest number of remote employees in 2019, that include jobs related to technology, medical assistance, and even education. The number 1 company with most remote hires is Appen, an Australian tech company that helps organizations develop artificial intelligence and automated learning products. While 4 of the 20 companies on the list are international (China, India and Sweden, for example), the majority are companies with HQs in the US. According to the CNBC report, the most common kind of remote work is in accounting, customer service, project managing, nurses, and writers.

It’s clear that organizations are adopting remote working at their own pace, taking into account their business model and customers’ needs. The problem is when remote work isn’t optional, as is the case in an unforeseen event or natural disaster. According to the Harvard Business Review, companies should take the following points into account when switching their operations to telecommuting:

Set up remote access BEFORE leaving the office. Providing training and resources after employees are out of the office can be difficult, especially if it’s their first time working remotely.

Keep Confidential Information Confidential. Avoid the use of personal emails at all costs, and control how confidential information is handled, printed, and destroyed at home. Avoid the use of personal computers that don’t have an up-to-date operating system, antivirus, and other basic resources that reduce security risks.

Follow Best Practices. Employees should be clear on the risks associated with using the internet in public places or opening suspicious emails (one of the favorite tools a hacker uses to take control of corporate work emails and personal computers).

That’s why, at Conciliac we have worked to provide a solution to reconcile, validate, and consolidate an immense volume of data, ideal for remote working. Conciliac is installed on analysts’ computers, which allows them to work remotely without depending on their office connection or their bandwidth at home. There’s no need for analysts to go through special training to take their work home because there’s no change in working remotely. It doesn’t depend on availability or capacity of a system in the cloud, and there’s no risk to confidential information.

And as if this were not enough, Conciliac offers reconciliation as a service for companies that need to outsource their reconciliation needs. Contact us to find out why companies across 5 continents have chosen us as their reconciliation solution.

Author: Conciliac team.

References:

“The Digital Employee in 2019: Citrix report (INFOGRAPH)”, September 2019
https://www.pandaancha.mx/noticias/el-trabajador-digital-2019-citrix-estudio-tendencias-infografia.html

Jennifer Liu: “These 20 companies around the world are on a hiring spree for work-from-home jobs”, January 2020, cnbc.com
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/top-20-companies-hiring-remote-workers-and-best-remote-roles.html

Brenda R. Sharton: “Will Coronavirus Lead to More Cyber Attacks?”, March 2020, Harvard Business Review
https://hbr.org/2020/03/will-coronavirus-lead-to-more-cyber-attacks