With the global Covid-19 pandemic, almost overnight traditional offices had to close meaning kitchen tables became desks and bedrooms became conference rooms and face to face meetings turned into video conferences. For this to be possible, IT had to make it all work. While remote working has been encouraged and adopted by some businesses giving its employees a better work life balance, many other companies had to suddenly adjust to all employees working at home.

In our latest survey of over 1,600 IT professionals we found that 93% of respondents reported an increase in remote work in their business – not surprising really, given the current situation with a lot of staff having to become fully remote workers.

We wanted to understand how this increase in remote working has affected the IT teams, and share some of this useful information with you – you are not alone!

Here are 3 major impacts of the transition to remote work:

1: 37% Increase in overall workload

To cope with the shift to remote work, IT professionals had to do the following;

  • 70%  provided VPN access to more employees than ever before
  • 54% sourced, set up and distributed extra devices
  • 53% created more “how to” knowledge articles for employee and customer support

2. 66% Reported an increase in security issues

Security issues are rising in a remote environment.  The top issues include:

  • 58% saw an increase in malicious emails received
  • 45% saw an increase in non-compliant, risky employee behaviour
  • 31% saw an increase in software vulnerabilities

3. 39% Increase in Incidents and Requests

Of this increase, the top incidents and requests submitted include:

79% - VPN Issues
56% Video conferencing
48% Bandwidth constraints
47% Password resets
47% Messaging issues
45% File and data access problems

Whether you are itching to get back in the office, or love working near your family, pets and fridge, we expect a flexible work, a blend of both home working and remote working in the future.  Many people job searching will be looking at remote working as an option when finding their next role.

Read the survey report to learn more about the impact of an expanded remote workforce and how you can be an IT hero to manage and protect your IT infrastructure and support your end-users as we head into the new future of work.

READ THE SURVEY REPORT