As a business owner, you might be curious if it’s time to offer remote work opportunities. Did you know that companies that offer remote opportunities have happier employees? It’s well documented in today’s day and age that the era of full-time, inflexible in-office hours are no longer as popular as they once were. New technologies are enabling more companies to empower their employees to work outside of the office.

Let’s define what remote work is, the different kinds of remote work, and how you can build a system that lets you offer remote work opportunities to your employees.

What is remote work?

At its core, remote work refers to when employees conduct their work outside of a designated site, such as your company’s offices. This can mean working from home, a coffee shop, or halfway across the world on a tropical island somewhere.

At its core, remote work means granting employees the flexibility and power to choose where they can complete their work, and relies on a level of trust that they will complete deliverables and accomplish their job. This usually isn’t a problem if you hired normal, mature, well-adjusted adults that are capable of self-regulation.

Remote work isn’t an all-or-nothing deal, and there are several sub-categories. Here are two of the most common types of remote work schedules:

Limited or Hybrid Remote

This schedule type is very broad, and basically applies to any schedule that allows someone to work remote some, but not all, of the time. Commonly, businesses will adopt a limited or hybrid schedule by splitting work weeks into onsite and remote days. For example, an employee might be allowed to work remote for two days, and then be required to be onsite for the other three every week.

There is an incredible amount of customization that can go into a limited or hybrid schedule, like allowing employees to choose the days they work remotely, or even offering additional remote days as an “award” for hitting certain milestones.

Fully Remote

Fully remote schedules are just that: fully remote. There is either no expectation to be in the office, ever, or there might not even be a centralized office to be in.

While fully remote positions offer the most flexibility in where an employee can work, they also come with the cost of being the loneliest. Many companies will remedy this by hosting company events and get togethers several times throughout the year to give employees opportunities to get to know and connect with other employees.

Is my business eligible for remote work?

To tell if your business is eligible to offer remote work, you really only have to ask one important question: is there anything that anyone does that absolutely requires them to be in a particular physical location?

The answer to this question can sometimes be clear. For example, retail or hospitality workers don’t really have much choice; their job requires them to be physically present. However, other positions might be less obvious.

Sometimes, a business might have departments or individual members that do have to be onsite, while other departments or employees might not have that same requirement.

In any case, technology is allowing more and more professionals to work remotely with increasing efficiency and effectiveness. If you’ve come to the conclusion that remote work isn’t possible for your business, it’s worth revisiting the topic every few years to see if anything has changed.

How can I offer remote work opportunities?

So let’s say you’ve answered our earlier question and realized that no, there isn’t anything that requires your team to be physically present, and you want to offer remote work. Great! Where do you start? Depending on your industry and business composition, you’ll likely have to work with your IT and security teams (or, if you don’t have those, you can always reach out to us!). Regardless of your industry and business type, there are three main hurdles that you now have to overcome:

Security of Company Data

In an office, it can be simple to secure things like company files and computers. How do you secure company data if your team will be working from different locations? Here are a few things you can look into that apply to most companies:

• Configure MFA: MFA is one of the most simple, yet most powerful things that you can set up for your business accounts. MFA ensures that even if your password is leaked, you can still effectively protect your account.
• Implement MDM: MDM, or Mobile Device Management, allows you to remotely manage and apply policies to company devices. For example, you can push out policies that require users to use longer, more secure passwords to unlock their company laptops.
• Encrypt Devices: Encrypting company devices ensure that if a device is lost or stolen, the data stored on the device cannot be harvested or sold.

Availability of Company Data

Most companies today use several different apps, programs, and services to conduct business. How do you ensure that your team can easily and reliably access these systems and their data?

• Assign App Administrators: App administrators are individuals who are in charge of understanding a specific app, and have the necessary access to alter settings and assist other users. App administrators can help your employees gain access (securely!!) to an app if they’re unable to do so.
• Build a Remote-Friendly Ecosystem: Use systems that are easily accessible from anywhere. For example, Google Workspace offers cloud storage with all of its accounts. Instead of having employees store files on their computer, have them use the Google Drive app to store files in the cloud, where they can easily share them with each other.
• Configure VPN: If you have a physical server in your office that absolutely cannot be moved to the cloud, you can always configure a VPN, or Virtual Private Network. VPNs allow you to securely connect to a physical server in your office and access files or systems, even if you’re connecting from hundreds of miles away.

Employee Training and Preparedness

When working remotely, your company will face unique challenges that require intentional planning and training to overcome. This is arguably the most crucial part of the entire formula.

• Tech Training: All the great technical and fancy solutions in the world don’t matter if your team isn’t trained to use them properly, or doesn’t know how to take advantage of what’s been put in place.
• Security Awareness Training: Working remotely presents unique security challenges. Threats like computer theft, network-based attacks, and shoulder surfing are much larger risks outside of a controlled office. Services like our Human Risk Management platform help train and prepare your workforce to deal with these threats by educating and testing your employees.
• Company Policies: Document, document, document. It’s critical to have an official stance on what is and isn’t okay, and what your employees are expected to do when working remote. Build official remote work policies so that your entire team is on the same page.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, every business has to decide if they want to, or even can, offer remote work as a perk to their employees. At Attainable Security, we firmly believe that remote work is the future for many businesses, and are more than willing to lend a hand to any organization that wants to give it a shot. We believe that it’s time to offer remote work opportunities.

If that’s you, reach out to us today to start transforming your workforce!