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Despite all the cool tools, tech collaboration is still missing something

  • min read
    • Since the pandemic began, organizations have been working hard on how they collaborate. But something's still missing, and it's to do with people. Looking at successful tech and creative collaborations of the past, common trends emerge. Any organization can use these to kickstart better collaboration within and between their teams. 1.   Make partnerships bigger than their parts Perhaps the most impactful partnership right now involves big pharmaceutical companies working together to create COVID-19 vaccines. Harvard Business Review also looked at lessons learned from thousands of Chinese companies adopting more open data architecture to help scale up medical supplies production. There are other examples too. Rival payment vendors Alipay and WeChat worked with the Shanghai government to develop a QR-code based tracking system adopted by 10 million users in just six weeks. 2.   Look for driven and imaginative leadership The Unabomber was a terrorist who bombed some 16 targets across the US from the 1970s until his capture in 1996. The recent Netflix series on the hunt for the Unabomber shows how driven and imaginative leadership allowed the FBI to organize the huge investigation that ultimately identified and caught the perpetrator. A crucial piece in the puzzle was the decision to use a little-known investigative tool at the time, forensic linguistics, to profile the killer and link a suspect to the bomber's messages through his writing. 3.   Combine people with complementary skills A remarkable feature of the collaboration of the UK's famous Bletchley Park World War II code-breaking group is they worked together without knowing what each other did. The set of computers known as Colossus flawlessly executed a complex and precise series of steps. And while the Enigma machines get much publicity, the real challenge was a more complex German High Command code called Lorenz. The innovative team was assembled by recruiting civilians through difficult crossword puzzles placed in newspapers. Another great example is the team that created the Ford Mustang, as chronicled in 2015 documentary A Faster Horse. It's all about a group of engineers and designers working together to solve a specific problem. 4.   Involve everyone in generating and executing ideas Member of surreal British comedy group Monty Python, Eric Idle, says the whole Monty Python team wrote their skits before they cast them. It meant no one would be personally invested in an idea before the group could fine-tune it. Many collaborative efforts depend on a solid process of idea creation and development. Real-time online writing and editing tools like Google Docs can facilitate these efforts when you're not working face-to-face. 5.   Use active learning and group training The US Army now recognizes soldiers must protect their digital networks and repel cyber invasions. They recently created a cyber workspace near Augusta, Georgia, called Tatooine. The name refers to the planet where Star Wars' Luke Skywalker spent time in the early movies. Initially, it will focus on drone detection, active hunting of cyber threats on Department of Defense networks and designing better training systems for cyber soldiers. They're also building great partnerships between military and civilian resources, for example, the successful Hack the Army bug bounty program. 6.   Use communication and collaboration tools effectively Many of these teams worked together before the digital age, using basic communication tools. We're now blessed with email, real-time messaging apps, video chats and more. But these blessings are also a curse if misused. I've previously written about the signs you're not using communication tools effectively. The history of collaboration has been one of fits and starts. While we keep making the same mistakes, there are signs of hope as new digital collaboration tools help us over some of the hurdles. I hope you'll find these examples an inspiration for your future collaborations.
transform home working

How to stay sane and secure while working from home

  • min read
    • We live in an interconnected world of freedom and possibility. When it works, it's bliss. With the right (secure) technology, we can work anywhere. Video conferencing, live chat, social media and good old-fashioned email let us catch up with a home-based teammate or share reports with a partner in the opposite time zone. In times of crisis, mobile working is a necessity. When Italy and parts of China shut down to help limit the spread of COVID-19 (the coronavirus), many employers around the world also shut office doors and asked their people to log on from home. They didn't want to take the risk, and they were ready. If health and travel restrictions hit your area, you can keep calm and carry on if your company already has a secure virtual private network (VPN) access to the corporate network and an advanced approach to flexible working. When metropolitan life shifts off track I've lived and worked in London for two decades. As a recent graduate, like so many others who move to large cities, I was lured by the dream of streets paved with gold. And our world keeps getting more urban. UN research suggests by 2050, more than two in three people worldwide will live in a city. Any Londoner will tell you a transport workers' strike is as much part of London life as the chime of Big Ben. We never know until the final hour whether it will happen or what fresh chaos will ensue, like squeezing onto one of the city's iconic red buses after a two-hour wait, with a desperate hollar of, "Can someone please open a window?" In the technologically distant past (well, 2014), I worked in a trendy publishing house. In the center of my sleek glass desk was a state-of-the-art, large-screen desktop Mac. On the occasion of one memorable strike, this was little help. For two days, I donned sneakers and walked 10 miles to the office and back. I revelled in this new change of pace, discovering new streets and unexpected architecture, seeing my city in a new light. But for most who work in London, walking and cycling is not practical. Four million people commute for more than two hours a day. Home vs. office: Productivity is still a challenge Nowadays, working in an international team with Kaspersky, I choose the best times to go to the office, when face-to-face counts, and when the connection with peers and the business dynamic helps me most. But when public transport grinds to a halt, a pandemic hits or I just feel a bit lackluster, I know I can work just as well from home quarters as from headquarters. But how do you work from home and stay sane and productive? There's plenty of advice out there on how to work effectively at home. Having a dedicated workspace, working regular office hours and locking the cat in a separate room are all good strategies. Less often touched upon, is security. Here are some tips. https://youtu.be/J96DETNCZCw Discipline goes hand-in-hand with lack of discipline My homeworking strategy is, discipline meets mind-wandering. Discipline to time block, catch deadlines, get things done. The reward: a long lunch and Netflix episode, a brisk walk or trip to the store, a match or 10 of Angry Birds, then picking up the slack later. My home office routine is more like this freelancer's experience – certainly, I can fashion an impromptu meal in under eight minutes from the contents of a fridge-freezer. TV chefs rarely extol the virtues of tinned soup as a base ingredient for lunch, but take it from me, it's endlessly versatile. For variety, I'll work anywhere in the house, other than the bathroom. I sometimes miss the office water cooler chat, but there are alternatives. During my first foray into home working in 2010, I discovered Twitter, made many professional contacts (and friends) from it, and never looked back. For those working in teams, the popularity of project tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams means inspiration (or distraction) is just a click away. The rise and benefits of mobile and flexible working Mobile working is more than a trend. Stanford University found remote workers were 13 percent more productive than desk-based counterparts. And flexible working, when you have more choice about whether to work from the office or elsewhere, is on the rise, along with its productivity benefits. Work Foundation estimates 70 percent of organizations will have adopted mobile working by 2020. When HSBC surveyed its employees recently, it found 89 percent through flexible working was key to getting more work done. And the Global Shapers Survey, supported by the World Economic Forum, found nearly one in three under 30s chose work-life balance as critical criteria when considering a role. Yet many office-based businesses still can't, or don't, offer much choice for home working. During the height of the coronavirus crisis, a Global Web Index survey of UK and US people found only 10 percent were encouraged to work from home. It shouldn't be either/or. Offering flexible and mobile working means on-premises employees are more likely to give more back. How so? Imagine your sales star, Angela. She's just flown back from a conference in the US. She's been on the go for 72 hours, charming potential customers at the delegate party, trying to set up product demo calls and writing proposals on the 10-hour flight home. By the time her (delayed) flight lands, she's physically and mentally shattered. Imagine how she feels about having to get up with the lark, navigating rush hour traffic to slump onto her desk? How well will Angela perform today? Now instead, imagine Angela sleeps late and wakes recharged. She switches on her laptop and is ready to start selling. Flexible, mobile and teleworking are no longer anomalies, they're business as usual. Not doing it may mean when factors beyond your control affect your business, you're on the back foot – far behind competitors whose non-frontline and office employees are already working from where they are. Embedding a more flexible-friendly culture also means presenteeism, and clocking in and out, are no longer viewed as success. Mobile workers need better cybersecurity If you're a business owner or IT leader, you're probably wondering what the proliferation of remote and flexible working means for cybersecurity. From malware and ransomware to decentralizing control of your IT networks, you'll need to do some things to protect your business. You'll also need to introduce the right equipment, training and policies – including bring-your-own-device – to make sure telecommuters are working securely. Here are more recommendations for teleworking and security. Reading Kaspersky's Remote working: How to make the laptop lifestyle flow sweetly (and securely) for your business will also help keep your people happy and your business safe.
new normal business covid19

Be the architect of your ‘new normal’ in business

  • min read
    • When COVID-19 spread across the globe, it demanded urgent action from every business. For many, working from home was mandated overnight. Others were sent home on paid leave. Spending slowed drastically. It even disrupted the disruptors: Monzo, Deliveroo and WeWork announced devastating job cuts. It also sparked a time of self-reflection. Environmental impact came into sharp focus, and a conversation about work-life balance erupted. According to leading market intelligence agency Mintel, its consumer and social media trends expert Gabrielle Lieberman says coronavirus didn't create behavior shifts. It accelerated them. Global trends in wellbeing, identity and experiences slated for 2030 are on a fast track to being adopted sharpish. Businesses can't slow down. They must grab the opportunity to create a 'new normal' that works for them. There's no place like home unless it's for months on end Flexible working seemed 'solved' as tech giants like Spotify, Facebook and Google implemented longer-term work-from-home policies. Job done, right? Not so fast. It wasn't long before Zoom calls got old, loneliness took hold and employees started to fear taking a break under the eye of productivity monitoring. Parents faced a crisis as their home and work life collided. Flexible working has proven benefits. It means different things to different people. Definitions include remote work, compressed hours (working longer days but a shorter week) and split hours (for example, working early morning to afternoon, then again in the evening.) It's hard to pin down because it means work designed around an individual to optimize their balance and productivity. Most people want to keep working flexibly post-COVID-19, according to the World Economic Forum's July 2020 research. They want more autonomy and want to split their time between the office and remote work. Senior managers agreed flexible working has benefits but stressed the importance of face-to-face meetings. Where those face-to-faces aren't possible, collaborative tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams can build positive vibes with dedicated channels for humor and memes as well as work-related chat. Workplace design can make us healthier To help companies prepare their workspaces for life with COVID-19, the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) created a WELL health-safety rating. It's an "evidence-based, third-party verified rating" for new and existing buildings and spaces focused on "operational policies, maintenance protocols, emergency plans and stakeholder engagement strategies." But can businesses go further with their office spaces and use them to improve employee health and wellbeing? IWBI also works with companies to help them meet the WELL Building Standard. This rating system recognizes that buildings, and everything in them, can enhance people's health and wellbeing. It encourages organizations to pay more attention to things like light, nourishment and biophilic design: Interior planting with species that improve indoor air quality and filter pollutants. Just as flexibility benefits both business and employees, remember flexible office space can liberate the budget. For example, having a more compact office with hot desks, workshop spaces and meeting rooms can reduce costs. Retain more people by building leaders' emotional intelligence To help teams cope with change, World Economic Forum research shows empathetic, supportive team leaders are more important than ever. And we're not there yet – more than half of managers need training in skills to support employee mental health. And it might just turn out to be a staff retention boon: Employees don't leave companies, they leave managers. Dr. Joti Samra, R.Psych, founder of MyWorkplaceHealth, a consultancy helping businesses make their workplace more psychologically healthy, puts communication at the center of the empathy and support team leaders can give. She says, "Have one-to-ones with direct reports more often to understand their stress points. It may be money, children or caring for an elderly relative. Adapt expectations to each person's needs. I'm asking my managers to have more contact to find out who's OK and who's struggling, so we can give them early support." The flex appeal of freelancers Tapping into the global freelance market can be a cost-efficient way to scale up or down, reacting to the market quickly. Steve Folland, host of the Being Freelance podcast, has seen his community grow in numbers and strength. On the best ways to work with freelance talent, Folland recommends, "Give clear briefs, realistic deadlines and listen to their advice. When it's all done, pay promptly. Bring freelancers on with as much notice as possible. You'll get the best results that way. As with all relationships, communication is key." Owning the Zoom Knowing your way around video chat software has proven essential if you accidentally turn yourself into a potato. Employees thrown into the deep end during the COVID-19 pandemic with software like Slack, Trello and Asana are keen to keep developing their knowledge. Invest in learning and development, including when it's best not to Zoom and when to take a digital detox, helps retain talent and make your business more resilient. Remote working is a big change in the way people work and caries serious cybersecurity risks. To keep data secure, train freelancers and staff working remotely to be cybersafe. People, planet, profit Overnight changes in reaction to COVID-19 gave many of us time to reflect on our environmental impact. While the pandemic initially presented us with clearer skies and cleaner waterways, the focus on hygiene has derailed the war on single-use plastic. Businesses shouldn't wait to use their corporate influence for environmental change. As well as looking at processes across your company, including the services and products you buy and organizations and non-profits you partner with, look at how you can reduce your company's IT carbon footprint. The UN Global Compact also has frameworks, resources and guidance on how to improve your business practices for a better future. Amongst uncertainty, it's natural to feel conservative and cautious. But for visionaries, it's time to rip up the rulebook and embrace the opportunity to create a new normal that works for your business. It's time to be the architect of your future.
working from home research girl laptop coffee sofa

The surprising facts about working from home

  • min read
    • Remote working, telecommuting, working from home. Whatever you call it, you can't have failed to notice how many more workplaces are offering or even expecting employees to work from home at least some of the time. You may be looking for remote working as a benefit for your next role, or considering offering it to your employees. Is home working just a trend, or is there evidence to support whether it works? I decided to find out what the research had to say. Here are eight crucial findings. 1.      Flexible working is fast-growing The 2019 IWG Global Workplace Survey of 15,000 professionals in 80 nations found 80 percent of businesses in Germany, 76 percent in Brazil and 58 percent in India had flexible working policies. Policies also seem to be translating into practice. Over 50 percent of survey participants reported they were working more than half the time remotely. What's the opportunity? Offering flexible working is now the norm. If your business isn't there yet, you may have to have some tough conversations to get things moving. Today's the day to start. 2.      Homeworking could give you an extra day per week A Stanford study that monitored around 500 employees in China's largest travel agency for two years found working from home increased productivity by over 20 percent. That's equivalent to an extra working day each week. The increase in productivity came from several ways employees changed how they were working. They took fewer breaks and less time off (such as sick days), but mostly, they just got through more work. Professor of Economics, Nicholas Bloom, explained these findings in his TedX Stanford talk in 2017. https://www.youtube.com/embed/oiUyyZPIHyY What's the opportunity? If you want to improve productivity, make sure home working is on the table. If you're already doing it but it's not delivering, your policy may need review, so the next point is salient. 3.      It's not for everyone The same Stanford study found that after the trial work-from-home period, around half the participants decided to be office-based in the future. What's the opportunity? Everyone's an individual, and your business homeworking policy should reflect this. Flexible or home working also means taking into account each employee's role, needs and preferences. Reconsider an 'all or nothing' approach to home working. 4.      Remote workers struggle to 'switch off' British researchers Alan Felstead and Golo Henseke assessed the evidence around remote working's impacts in 2017, using large-scale studies. They concluded there was good evidence that remote working reduces the strain of time-pressured work and lets employees better work around personal circumstances (like needing to be at home with a sick child or to get the washing machine repaired.) Homeworkers showed more overall job satisfaction, more commitment to their employer and a greater willingness to go above-and-beyond their role requirements. Researchers found one negative impact: Remote workers reported more difficulty 'switching off' and unwinding at the end of the day. What's the opportunity? Switching off and unwinding makes us better at our work. We should see it as part of our job. More so if we work from home, because the research suggests it's harder to do. Review your organization's health and well-being policy. If it doesn't place value on employees taking breaks and switching off, it should. No matter your seniority, you can cultivate a culture that values unwinding and doesn't expect your employees to be 'always on' just because they're at home, particularly if you're working with team members across multiple time zones. 5.      The value of homeworking may depend on the type of work A 2018 study of 273 self-selecting telecommuters and their supervisors found telecommuting improved performance for three types of employees: those with complex jobs, those who didn't need others to do their job and those who had low levels of interaction when in the office. They didn't find any types of jobs where homeworking decreased employees' performance. What's the opportunity? Knowing some roles tend to be better suited to remote working can help you organize your team better or diagnose the problem if home working isn't delivering expected benefits. Role-related benefits to remote working will always depend on the qualities of the person in the role. 6.      Cybercriminals have noticed more people are working from home Researchers noted the first wave of coronavirus-themed malicious activities, including spam, phishing and even malicious files. Targets have included those educational institutions and governments agencies that have been in the news for conducting learning and business remotely; cyber criminals are banking on their lack of IT resources and vulnerabilities like legacy software. What's the opportunity? Kaspersky's white paper Remote working: How to make the laptop lifestyle flow sweetly (and securely) for your business is a good place to start for security measures that enable remote working. In the event of a cybersecurity incident, prioritize good communication. The World Health Organization's (WHO) response to coronavirus email scammers pretending to be them is an excellent example of a promptly issued statement in plain language that raises awareness of cybercrime. 7.      Young talent values the opportunity to work from home, but not for the reasons you might think Younger employees (age 16 to 29) are most likely to want to work from home, according to Polycom's 2017 study, with 24,000 respondents in 12 countries. Interestingly, young employees named increased productivity as their top reason for wanting to work from home. What's the opportunity? If you're having trouble attracting early talent like graduates and apprentices, it's another reason to look at your flexible-working offer. But it might again point to the importance of having a health and wellbeing policy that supports true work-life balance, not just being at home. While claims of workshy youth seem to be eternal, the evidence suggests younger talent is more likely to be working longer hours and risking burnout. 8.      Offering remote working helps attract and retain more diverse talent Being more supportive of remote and flexible working will help companies attract and retain more women, in part because women are far more likely than men to shoulder care responsibilities. As this Felstead and Henseke research shows, working from home helps employees adapt to personal circumstances. But what about other groups under-represented in your workplace? Seekout describes remote working as "the single best secret of diversity recruitment." They cite the desire to work remotely as at the top of the list for many job-seekers, attracting more applicants overall, and homeworking has apparent attractions for women and disabled people. Where's the opportunity? You can only gain more top talent by making sure your job adverts highlight flexible working as a benefit. It's in the top two employee benefits applicants care most about. Attracting more applicants is, of course, just the first step in building a more diverse workforce. Minimizing unconscious bias helps make sure the best applicants get hired. Every company's needs are unique; many industries need the presence of people to make and deliver goods and services, serve customers or devise ideas together. But consider if your non-frontline staff could benefit from having the option to work at least some of the time remotely. These findings can support you in finding the best way to harness the power of remote working and guide you around common pitfalls. The one that gives me the most pause for thought (pun intended) is the importance of switching off and taking a break. No matter who you are – from apprentice to chief executive – your most important work might not just happen in your home office. It might be when you're doing nothing at all.
telecommuting cybersecurity

Cybersecurity for home working in a hurry

  • min read
    • Rushing to make decisions that have security consequences is never ideal. Equally, there are times when we get thrown a curve ball and must act quickly. If home-working is new for your company, and you need to get policies and systems in place fast, you'll want to know the cybersecurity risks and how to reduce them. Start here to make sure your staff are securely set up to work from home as soon as possible. Home internet connections can be vulnerable When your employees work in the office on the local network, your security solutions handle data exchange processes. But when employees work from home, there's an extra variable – internet service providers (ISPs). You can't control their ISP's security, which may mean their home connection is vulnerable to attack. The solution: A reliable virtual private network (VPN) For your employees to connect remotely to corporate resources, set them up with a reliable virtual private network (VPN). This makes a secure channel between their workstation and your infrastructure. You'll also need to disallow connections to corporate resources from external networks without a VPN. Behavior changes make attacks harder to spot When people work from home, their routines change. Telecommuters can't just walk over to a colleague to talk about something. Expect an increase in correspondence, including new participants – people with whom communication used to be purely verbal. These changes give attackers more opportunity, in particular for Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks – for example, using an account with an address similar to the victim's. In other words, a fake message asking for data will not seem as unusual as it normally might. The more relaxing home environment can make many people less vigilant. The solution: Using protected work email only, and staff knowing why First, employees at home should use only work email. This makes it easier to spot a cybercriminal's attempt to impersonate a colleague from an account on another domain. Second, protect your mail servers with technologies that can detect attempts to change the message sender, like our solutions for both mail servers and Microsoft Office 365. Third, before employees start working from home, make sure they get a crash course in cyberthreats. Use of leaky collaboration tools can rise Without face-to-face contact, employees may start using other ways to collaborate. Some might not be the most reliable – and must be set up correctly. For example, a Google Docs document with certain access permission configurations may be indexed by a search engine, leaking corporate data. The same thing can happen to data in cloud storage. A collaboration environment like Slack can also leak, and a randomly added outsider could get access to the whole history of files and messages. The solution: Choose a better collaboration environment Choose a collaboration environment with suitable security and features. Participants should need a corporate email address to register. It's often worthwhile appointing a dedicated administrator to issue and revoke rights as needed. Most important, before employees work from home, hold an awareness session – which could be remote. Insist they use only the approved collaboration system, and reiterate their responsibility for keeping corporate secrets safe. Risks of home computer use Generally speaking, not all employees have access to corporate laptops. And mobile phones are not suitable for all tasks. Employees might start using their home computers. This can pose a serious threat for companies with no Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. The solution: Protected corporate equipment or BYOD policy If possible, give home-working employees appropriately protected corporate laptops and phones. These should be protected with solutions that allow remote wiping of corporate information, keep personal and corporate data separate, and restrict the ability to install applications. Make sure the devices also automatically check for the latest critical software and operating system (OS) updates. If employees must use their own devices, introduce a BYOD policy for managing corporate data on those devices, for example, partitions for business and personal data. Insist employees install home antivirus software. Allow devices to connect to corporate networks only after confirming they have a security solution installed and an up-to-date OS. Others accessing employees' equipment It's one thing for employees to work at home alone during the day, but another if they go to a café or coworking space, where risks of leakage or compromise are far greater. The solution: access policies and awareness Security policies should require a password and automatic screen lock. And as with other cybersecurity issues in telecommuting, awareness training is a must to maintain overall vigilance. This article was published in March, 2020.

Boardroom or living room, where will you work at your best?

  • min read
    • On average, we'll each spend 90,000 hours of our life working. That's a long time to be in an environment that's not ideally suited to how you like to work. With many factors, from commute and connectivity to influence and environment playing a part, finding the ideal office conditions for your personality can be challenging. Luckily, in our interconnected world, it's easier than ever before for people to achieve a work-life balance that was previously unobtainable. Technology allows us to be more connected than ever before, opening up a world of opportunities – literally! But which working environment is actually the most conducive to letting you get down to business? In short, what makes an office your best office? To help you find the environment that's most suited to your working needs, we've put together this quick and easy quiz. To find out more about the benefit of remote and flexible working and to stay secure, explore the Work anywhere, secure everywhere series.
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Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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