TECH TALK: BILL MAGEE says companies must embrace work from home colleagues in their recovery plans
Blackout Friday is a more apt epithet for the online tech sales fest with which we’re all currently getting bombarded as companies and employees face uncertain weeks and months ahead from soaring energy bills and a likely recession.
The global marketing push, known as Black Friday, comes against a background where business bosses and IT departments are strongly urged to install emergency measures; above all, to guard against sudden power outages that can all but cripple a company and isolate staff. Especially remote colleagues.
It’s understandable those under commercial pressure might seek a wee distraction by indulging in some online retail therapy, mostly instigated by stateside-based Big Tech, with a vast array of big discounts and special deals on all sorts of gadgets both for the office and home.
Let’s dwell on the latter. In their dash to install special measures, organisations are warned not to leave employees working from home (WFH) out in the cold this winter.
The UK Office for National Statistics reports that before COVID-19, 1-in-8 adult employees were identified as WFH.
Since pandemic guidance ceased, this has risen to 1-in-3 of staff working from home, or on a hybrid basis.
The “homeofficelife” website reveals 50 of the largest UK employers have no plans to return staff to the office full-time in the near future. Flexible working goes from strength to strength.
Theta Global Advisors research reveals the rising cost of living is fuelling anxieties with almost 1-in-2 of the UK workforce worried their employer isn’t doing enough to help their cause.
Add to this a Harvard Business Review study finding WFH staff say they’re more likely to feel left out and extra measures should be put in place to build on “trust and connection” between office and home-based staff.
Flexible working has led to many working all or part of the week from a home base. HBR claims If vital connection is broken the organisation involved will “pay dearly”.
Nowadays, many people liaise online with colleagues they’ve never met or even spoken to on the phone.
“In these settings relationships are often mediated by technology.” It all changes if tech connections are disrupted such as by a power outage.
Worryingly, 84% of remote employees surveyed say when there is a workplace challenge or concern, it can drag on” for a few days or more, 47% say it can take weeks to resolve.
HBR recommends companies not to fall for the temptation of ending flexible work programmes altogether, bringing everyone back into the office.
“Instead, they should encourage work habits leading to feelings of trust, engagement and shared purpose.”
Here’s a “blackout checklist” for organisations:
Companies should check their disaster recovery (DR) plan. Especially if they are dependent on a data centre to digitally run their organisation.
Apparently, DR covers such centres but random outages can damage operational resiliency. One solution is to move critical data to another location.
Businesses should immediately review their map of digital assets. If there isn’t one – draw one up without delay before they’re potentially struck by downtime and data loss.
Disaster recovery and backup solutions have evolved to meet new cyber threats a modern business faces in an “always on” environment.
Seek out an industry-leading vendor as partner in case you have to rapidly recover from an incident.
Look at Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) to ensure you maintain essential functions during a disaster and minimise losses and restore data.
A disaster recovery assessment gives insight into resources creating a step-by-step guide on how to prepare for, implement and optimise the right solution.
Such a plan must include ALL employees and not only on a Friday. And as for that spell of retail therapy. Let’s hope the power is on..
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