At Everything Tech it seems that almost every business we speak to is changing the way they feel about home working. As we emerge from the pandemic, most businesses are adopting a mix of home working with two or three days in the office. However, how are we ensuring these homeworkers are getting and staying connected?
There’s a lot to think about if you want to get this right.
Security
By allowing home working with business devices, you need to think about security. You’ve probably spent some of the company’s cash on securing the network in the office, fancy firewalls, secure wireless, etc but when the users go home and connect to SKY1010323 what happens then? Who’s checking that their wireless isn’t just open because their kid finds it easier to let their mates on.
Do you need to provide a separate connection just for your employees?
What about separating the home stuff from your corporate kit? Do you have the policies in place and do your team know that it’s not acceptable for them to hand their work laptop over to a family member to buy the latest fast fashion?
Who pays?
Let’s think about car allowance and company vehicles for a minute, if you have a team of road warriors surely, you’ll be expected to supply a car or an allowance? Does the same apply to the internet? As a business that’s allowing people to work from home, you’re going to want them to have good, stable connections so that they can have reliable, stable Teams calls. Should you be supplying the kit and the connection? It would help you keep some control over the security aspect for sure.
What’s the cost and is it a benefit
It doesn’t seem like HMRC are sensitive about employees having connections provided by their employer counting towards their benefit in kind, it’s just too hard to differentiate between business use and browsing for your next holiday, and with the average home broadband connection costing around £30 per month, it’s not a big deal. But what about the employees that can’t get good cheap broadband? Should you as an employer be prepared to part with several hundred pounds per month to ensure your team can get a solid connection in the kitchen.
Who supports it?
What about the people working in their new loft room or converted garden shed, should your IT support team be responsible for supporting their environment? If you work for a large firm this could lead to hundreds of hours of additional support, it could put a load on the already-stretched IT dept.
One thing is for sure, flexible working isn’t going away and as a provider, we’re already being asked to install services at peoples houses and making them secure.
If you are interested in finding out more about how we can keep your business and employees connectedcontact ustoday.
