Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations are adopting or experimenting with new models of long-term remote work. For some, that means keeping their teams fully distributed. For others, it means giving employees more flexibility to work from home or even simply putting plans in place for the future. But this shift to remote work brings new challenges that both large enterprises and smaller organizations must face.

“We want to work remotely.” That’s the major takeaway from Ivanti’s just-released survey on the Everywhere Workplace. Nearly 2,000 consumers across the U.S. and U.K. responded. While most of them were abruptly shifted into remote work due to circumstances outside their control – and those circumstances were scary and confusing – there has been a silver lining. They’re happier at home.

March 11, 2020. Does that date ring a bell? For many, it won’t soon be forgotten. It’s the day when many companies across the globe closed their doors to keep workers safe from the pandemic. ServiceNow employees were told, “Be safe and go home.” This marked the official beginning of our work-from-home experience, one that turned our work lives—and many personal lives—upside down.

Five worthy reads is a regular column on five noteworthy items we have discovered while researching trending and timeless topics. This week, we explore Anywhere Operations as a new business model.

Remote work has existed for decades as an alternative to the traditional in-office work environment. When it first became a viable option—people have been working remotely since the dawn of email in 1971 and before via telephone—distributed work was often met with trepidation by companies and employees alike. In recent years, however, working remotely, “working from home,” and other similar terms have become commonplace.

With the right combination of tech and internal communications, you can do a huge amount to actually increase the wellbeing and value a remote employee feels they’re getting from your business. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses struggle to do this, at least on a continual basis.

One of the findings of our investigations pointed to a compromised account as a possible cause of the cyberoperation. While I was reading the results, I thought, “That could have been me. In fact, it could have been any of our employees,” and I began asking myself what I as an individual could do to increase the security of the company I’m working for. Let’s face it, most of the risk is produced by us humans and our behavior.

It looks as though remote work will be a part of our lives for at least the foreseeable future. Even with some offices reopening their doors, don’t be surprised to see a change in work policies and a more open mind for a hybrid work structure. With this shift in our workplace reality, many organizations will be reliant on a service desk with integrated remote support software to address some of their biggest and most common struggles while working remotely.

After more than a year of remote work and video meetings, most people are ready to bid farewell to the days of collaborating with colleagues through their computer screens. Not so fast. The approaching end to the pandemic doesn’t mean an end to telecommunication as the primary form of workforce collaboration. According to a recent study: While some companies have embraced remote work as the new normal, most businesses are preparing for a hybrid workplace.