3 Steps to Support Your Hybrid Work Model

Companies are shifting to a hybrid work model, with a Sungard AS survey showing that 89% of businesses find that combining in-office and remote work is the ideal long-term environment. And a recent Adecco report found that three-quarters of the workforce identified flexibility as a priority.

A demand for hybrid work doesn’t mean companies are ready for achieving the right balance and supporting this type of setting for work. The biggest obstacle for most organizations is security. Current security strategies were not built for hybrid work: they are designed to protect on-site data and systems, and the infrastructure relies heavily on legacy, on-premise IT.

That doesn’t mean that your company has to abandon a hybrid work model and bring everyone back to the office full time. Here are three steps you can take that will move your ability to accommodate hybrid work forward:

Adopt Zero Trust Policy: Remote settings are challenging to secure, and cyber criminals have been quick to take advantage of home networks and exposed devices. In order to address these challenges, companies can take a step that goes a long way in advancing their security: zero trust network access (ZTNA).

Perimeter-focused security is no longer enough as companies struggle to even define where the perimeter is. Using ZTNA and micro-segmentation in the network prevents malicious actors from lateral movement in the network if entry is gained and limits access to certain data to those employees that need it to do their jobs.

ZTNA takes the opposite approach of traditional security methods which assumed trustworthiness. Instead, the security team identifies areas of access based on job roles and assumes that every device, every user is not trustworthy until proven otherwise.

Update Infrastructure: Companies rely heavily on technology, but it can be challenging to implement the necessary tools that move the needle in critical areas like productivity, collaboration, and customer experience. It’s not just about downloading a new app or getting a cloud version of a solution. It’s often about the infrastructure.

Companies equipping teams for hybrid work may want to consider an update to infrastructure that improves performance and speed and reduces costs. Implementing software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) provides the foundation your company needs for supporting bandwidth-hungry, cloud-based communications technology, improving application performance and allowing network teams to quickly identify and resolve connectivity issues.

Prioritize Resilience in Partnerships: Choosing a hybrid work model may require your company to examine business providers and partners and their readiness for supporting this environment. You should also talk with business partners about their overall resilience and what plans they have in place to pivot and adjust in case of disruption. Are those plans ready, and have they been tested?

Consider the geographical distribution if you use a cloud-based data storage solution or a security as a service provider. Even diversifying your supply chain or working with multiple third-party partners, rather than a single partner, can help your business become more resilient.

If your company is embracing a hybrid work model, it’s important to build the support you need to sustain it. Contact us at One Connect to get started with a few steps that can help you make quick progress in supporting hybrid work for the long term.