Question

Question 1 (50 marks) (a) Work-from-home (WFH) trend is likely to change the working environment in this current pandemic. Discuss the key challenges in the aspects of communication and security of both company and workers. [25 marks]

Answer 1

a)

Answer :

The most obvious challenge associated with working from home is communication. A lack of face-to-face interaction and supervision can be difficult for team members and their managers to adjust to, especially if they’re used to being within arm’s reach during the workday.

Of course, communication is the single most vital element of success for operations teams, so it’s critical that remote managers facilitate communication protocols and practices to aid the flow of information both vertically and horizontally.

“Face-to-face interaction is generally lost, and there’s no substitute for this during some activities, especially those more collaborative in nature. Video conferencing can sometimes offset this, but it’s not a perfect replacement. Feeling like a cohesive team is more difficult, and some people can never get past that. (Manifesting both with those in the office feeling like remote workers aren’t being part of the team, and remote workers feeling like they aren’t treated like they are real teammates.)” (source)

“My biggest concern about hiring remote employees is how hard it might be to ensure that the culture of the agency remains strong and intact. There is a large part of our culture that is centered around collaboration, and my concern would be how not being face to face might impact that.” (source)

“One of the issues that we have encountered working remotely is just differences that arise due to different cultural expectations and work ethics.” (source).

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Productivity, Remote

7 Disadvantages of Working from Home and How to Counter Them

Rachel Go

Jan 9, 2018 — 16 min read

The phrases “remote work,” “distributed teams,” and “digital nomad” are becoming more and more trendy on the Internet. A lot of companies and virtual employees (us included) are writing about why it’s so great to be able to work from across the world and on your own schedule. Basically, there are a lot of benefits of working remotely for both employers and employees.

Personally, I’m all for it. I’m writing this article from a beach in Palawan, the Philippines with a healthy layer of sunscreen. Remote work is interesting, and it’s exciting, which means people are more likely to read about it and publicly endorse it.

But there’s another side of the coin.

There are companies for whom distributed teams didn’t work out. StatusPage.io wrote a blog post on their failed attempt to build a remote team and there’s a topic on Quora all about Problems Working Remotely. There’s this heated argument against full-time remote workers that stemmed from an article called Don’t Hire Remote Workers.

Since remote work is such a new trend, there are plenty arguments for it and not as many arguments against it from companies who have tried and failed. This article is my attempt to dig out the most common concerns that agency owners, project managers, startup CEOs and business founders have about hiring remote workers, as well as the biggest disadvantages of working from home.

The 7 most prevalent concerns managers have about hiring remote workers and how to counter them

Discovering the most prevalent remote work challenges from real-life managers

I started my research by scouring the Internet for existing articles. There are some excellent opinions out there on the disadvantages of working from home, but most of the responses I got were from online communities.

I asked questions on r/digitalnomad (to get the remote worker perspective) and r/startups (to get the business owner perspective) on disadvantages of working from home.

I also posed the question in communities on Quora, Inbound.org, GrowthHackers, The Workplace, and found an existing thread on HackerNews.

Here’s what I discovered.

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The top 7 disadvantages of working from home

1. A lack of community and differences in culture

“When you only see teammates in chat or a weekly video call, it’s hard to develop the tight-knit camaraderie that makes for truly great teams.” (source)

“Face-to-face interaction is generally lost, and there’s no substitute for this during some activities, especially those more collaborative in nature. Video conferencing can sometimes offset this, but it’s not a perfect replacement. Feeling like a cohesive team is more difficult, and some people can never get past that. (Manifesting both with those in the office feeling like remote workers aren’t being part of the team, and remote workers feeling like they aren’t treated like they are real teammates.)” (source)

“My biggest concern about hiring remote employees is how hard it might be to ensure that the culture of the agency remains strong and intact. There is a large part of our culture that is centered around collaboration, and my concern would be how not being face to face might impact that.” (source)

“One of the issues that we have encountered working remotely is just differences that arise due to different cultural expectations and work ethics.” (source)

Working independently with just a computer screen to keep you company is vastly different from the hustle and bustle of an office. When you hire remote workers, you can’t just pull them into a quick meeting (which some would argue is a good thing, since meetings waste time), or stop by their desks to see how work is going. There’s going to be some loss in camaraderie since you won’t see your team face-to-face every day.

Not only is the lack of work culture a concern, there may be cultural barriers if you’re hiring a remote worker from another country. In some cultures, employees are expected to agree with everything their employer says. In other countries, different perspectives are encouraged.

I can use my own experience as an example for this. When I worked with a marketing agency in America, I was encouraged to voice my opinions, even if they went against our founder. When I consulted with businesses in the Philippines, a common complaint was about employees always saying “yes” to whatever their managers want (even if they couldn’t deliver).

Unique expectations arise with workers from different countries, ranging from standards for employee behavior to communication preferences.

One of the biggest challenges of working remotely is getting the team communication right.
Communication can be complicated at the best of times, but when you’re not in the same physical space, you have to consciously communicate things you probably never even considered before.

When you work from home, transparency is compromised. You no longer have the freedom to go and check with your co-workers, discuss a project over impromptu coffee breaks, or have in-person or group meetings. Communication is one of the most critical aspects of a work culture. It keeps every team member updated and helps maintain a healthy workflow.

For managers, it becomes difficult to keep everyone on the same page. It is pretty challenging to put everything together when communication is compromised.

How to overcome: To keep everyone on the same page, conducting regular team meetings is crucial. Video conferencing tools, such as Zoom, and chat tools, such as Slack can help bridge the communication gap between team members and build cognitive and emotional trust. Also, to maintain a workflow among team members, a project-management system, such as Asana or Trello is a great option.

As the threat of coronavirus continues to spread, businesses are sending employees home to work remotely, and students are moving to online classes. But with the social distancing comes a new threat – a cyber-related one.

As organizations rush to shift their businesses and classes online, cybercriminals are ramping up their tactics to take advantage of those who may have inadequate or naive security postures as a result. Given the challenges in securing work- and learn-from-home environments, the attack surface represents an attractive opportunity for threat actors.

“Working from home or online education programs are not new. However, a large, immediate migration of people from enterprise and university networks that are closely monitored and secured, to largely unmonitored and often unsecure home Wi-Fi networks, creates a very large target of opportunity for cybercriminals,” Chris Hazelton, director of security solutions at Lookout, told Threatpost. “These users are outside the reach of perimeter-based security tools, and will likely have higher exposure to phishing and network attacks.”

Attacks Ramp Up

Researchers say that the first rash of efforts aimed at remote students and workers is likely to play on their fears and concerns about what sent them home to begin with – the coronavirus itself.

The concern is more than theoretical. Already, attackers have been leveraging coronavirus-themed cyberattacks as panic around the global pandemic continues – including various malware attacks involving Emotet and other threats. An APT for instance was recently spotted spreading a custom and unique remote-access trojan (RAT) that takes screenshots, downloads files and more, in a COVID-19-themed campaign. And, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued warnings about scammers pretending to be the organization. That activity is expected to expand along with the expanded attack surface, researchers said.

“In general, attackers are looking for a vulnerability to deliver their attack,” Chris Rothe, chief product officer and co-founder of Red Canary, told Threatpost. “In this case, people’s fear over the virus is the vulnerability attackers will look to capitalize on. If an individual is concerned or stressed about the virus they are less likely to remember their security training and will be more likely to, for example, click a link in a phishing email or give their credentials to a malicious web site.”

This forgetfulness when it comes to security can be especially true for those who are not used to working or learning at home: “People working from home get easily distracted, especially if they are normally used to working in the office, and they will mix work with personal email and web browsing,” Colin Bastable, CEO of security awareness training company Lucy Security, said in an email interview. “This increases the risks that they can introduce to their employers and colleagues, by clicking on malware links. So now is a great time to warn people to be ultra-cautious, hover over links and take your time.”

Organizations may be distracted as well, leading to increased risk. For instance, Otterbein University in Columbus, Ohio, was hit with a ransomware attack in the past week, just as it was making preparations to switch to online classes. The situation forced the school to extend its spring break for another week as it dealt with the problem, since it was rendered incapable of delivering online education as planned.

University officials told the local ABC station that it’s unclear what the attack’s infection vector was; and that they’re not sure when things will return to normal – both potential indicators of cybersecurity unpreparedness and IT resources stretched thin.

Small business insurance coverage, including general liability, property and workers’ compensation, will protect workers while at the worksite, office or at home. Workers’ Compensation Insurance generally covers if an employee is hurt during business hours while working from home. However, workers’ comp rules will vary by state. Working from home can facilitate unique workers’ compensation risks, including:

• Ergonomically unfriendly work areas: Many work from home spaces are not ergonomically friendly. Matt Zender, AmTrust’s senior vice president of workers’ compensation strategy, shares the issues that might arise, “The challenges that we see are many, and they start with simple ergonomics. It’s difficult for an employer to ensure that the ergonomics of the space that the employee is working from when they’re working from home are going to help versus hurt.”
• Awkward workspaces: Home workspaces might fill many purposes, but could also lead to injury risks. Zender explains, “A worker may be sharing that space with their 12-year-old’s science project, or their partner’s other hobbies or work, especially if they’re only working from home a couple of days a week. This commingling can lead to some awkward workspaces that can lead to injuries over time.”
• Cybersecurity risks: Working from home can pose a cybersecurity risk. If an employee is not using a secured Wi-Fi or VPN, their computer could be open to a cyber-attack. Employees should also be aware of the physical security of their electronic devices. They should keep their laptops to themselves and securely store them when they are not in use.

Research shows that remote workers are more prone to data theft and other kinds of malware attacks. That’s because many employees prefer to use their personal laptops which typically don’t offer enterprise-grade security. While they connect their inadequately protected laptops to the enterprise network, those employees may be unknowingly enabling a cyber-security risk that can jeopardize the entire organization’s safety. Given this scenario, it’s crucial for companies to deploy the right firewall, endpoint verification, and VPN tunnels, thereby allowing employees to work on their own devices from home without the risk of third-party data breach incidents and ransomware attacks.

Work-from-home, if implemented strategically, can result in cost savings, productivity gains, and ultimately a more efficient workforce. It offers flexibility, better work-life balance and a sense of autonomy among employees. While the advantages are many, tackling the above-mentioned challenges should be a priority for companies to facilitate a smooth transition to remote working. Scheduling virtual meetings with fixed intervals, setting up and training employees with project management tools and communication platforms, and having data security systems in place and plugging every endpoint with verification checks, creating feedback loops, introducing an end-to-end virtual onboarding process – steps like these are imperative to successfully implement WFH policies.