As the light at the end of the vaccine tunnel grows brighter, the reality of having to wear real pants and get back to the office again is setting in.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Bill Gates predicted that "30% of the days in the office will go away."
It seems that the majority of companies, both enterprise, and mom & pop shops, agree with Bill and are looking for solutions that will allow them to adopt a hybrid work environment.
In the early months of 2020, the nearly instantaneous appearance of COVID-19 and its effects triggered a mad dash to move everyone to remote work. Companies and employees were nowhere near ready to move to a WFH model. During the rushed transition, many encountered technical issues, widespread outages, and security breaches.
Over a year later, companies realize that we're not going back to how things were in 2019. Still, they wonder; Do we make people go back to the office, let everyone work from home, or find a viable hybrid solution. As companies review their options, many realize that the best option is a new innovative hybrid solution; work-from-anywhere (WFA). For knowledge workers whose roles rely on laptops, the internet, and mobile phones, "location should be a daily choice, not a lifestyle commitment." This new WFA plan includes employees who are co-located in the same physical space as well as employees who are truly working anywhere. When work can happen anyplace on the globe, complications arise. A WFA environment doesn't just magically happen; it takes a lot of work, buy-in from leadership teams and IT, and finding new and better ways of doing things.
When this all went down in March of 2020, no one knew if this would be the new normal, so they didn't want to throw money at the problem. Months later, they still haven't made any of the necessary changes to their tech and security protocols. Companies are starting to realize that they need to commit to this new normal and wonder what the next step is. To succeed in the new WFA environment, security protocols and associated technology need to be first on the list.
A recent Forrester Study determined a few things that leadership should acknowledge in the new WFA world.
First on that list is ID Security. (IAM & PAM)
When your employee can work from anywhere, how do you ensure that it's your employee logging into your network? The bottom line, if you are accessing the web or cloud-based apps from anywhere other than a corporate network, you're an easy target for hackers.
Everything is Contactless
Second on the list is employee and customer health and safety; everything must be contactless. People are wary of touching keypads, card readers & other devices used for Physical access and ID authentication.
One Solution for all Concerns
Proper authentication in the WFA model seems challenging to accomplish, and passwords alone cannot cover all the bases significantly. When you have employees working all over the globe, passwords can and do become compromised.
Voice Biometrics is the ONE solution that satisfies all of your WFA security needs. Voice was already recognized as a superior solution, but now post-covid, our primary goal isn't just data security but also for the health of our employees and customers. The V2 voice integration enables employees to access networks, data, app, and devices with the extensive security of voice authentication; without adding any friction, slowing down productivity, or removing any PPE (like facial or fingerprint biometrics).
Knowing that you have the enormous security questions identified and answered frees up your time to think ahead. The pandemic appears to be the end of the traditional office as we know it, and we need to start re-imagining what the future will look like. The faster we admit that changes are afoot, the safer our data is, the safer our employees are. When you think about the opportunities and advantages that a WFA model affords both companies and their employees, the buy-in and subsequent transition will be a cinch.
V2's voice biometric can significantly reduce identity risk and keep your employees and customers safe, all while having minimal impact on productivity or usability.
Read more about IAM in our white paper.
Commentaires