Remote workforce challenges for the CIO

Amid a global pandemic, the need to create and sustain remote working environment that ensures business continuity and utilizes relevant technologies is of the utmost importance. A distributed workforce organization offers unique challenges for the modern CIO, with success anchored on three essential aspects: addressing cyber threat risks and security concerns, ensuring productivity of remote working teams, and provision of tools and support for the remote work environment and user experience.

Cyber threat risk mitigation and security concerns

Cyber threats in the remote workspace can arise from different sources, with the most vulnerable being new collaboration tools and credential authentication. Collaboration tools are essential for remote working, but CXO need to be wary of data exfiltration. Zero-trust security implementation strengthens the protection of sensitive information outside of physical offices.

Mitigation involves data leak prevention, monitoring and protection, which are actions that become more challenging in a remote working environment. Human error is one of the main causes of data leaks. In addition to workplace policies, employee training on safe data practices must be prioritized. There are data leak prevention solutions that can minimize vulnerabilities. Device control management also allow for security automation. AES encryption and Bitlocker are some technologies that mitigate data leak risks.

Historically enterprises have restricted access to sensitive data to devices within their network, so shifting to remote working is a major disruption. Security issues also become more complex with hybrid infrastructure. The challenge is how to protect access to sensitive data across networks, while also maintaining seamless work experience.

 Remote workspace and user experience

An important role of the CIO is to improve user experience for all online hiring, inductions, customer meetings by deploying appropriate technologies and delegating their use pertinently.

Zero touch device life cycle management has become a key enabler for not only user experience but also for smooth rollouts in this “pandemically” challenged logistic and support environment. Ensuring that the device management solution is effective while also being complaint with different regional and state laws should be a priority for CIOs in their quest for improved productivity.

As for the delegation role, collaborative tools allow people to stay abreast of changes, despite their time zones. Despite their effectiveness, CIOs must ensure that there are guidelines that maintain a unified workplace while catering to special needs of some employees.

Support for the remote workforce

A resilient end-user support model that can deal with fluctuating user demands in a remote environment both in terms of calls for help and the need for laptops, tablets, or other mobile devices. The challenge for CIOs is to determine the level of support needed - whether ad-hoc or unattended support is more effective. Choosing the right support solution and vendors is the key for a sustainable support model.

Introduction of chat bots and AI driven virtual agents will cater to the fluid demands of distributed workforce and different time zones. This can cater to sudden spike of demand due to organic growth or M&A.

Whether you call it "post-pandemic" or "new -normal", remote working is here to stay. This raises a vast array of issues and challenges for CXOs and employees alike. The potential for the extent of remote working will depend on how enterprises address these challenges.