Articles about WFH

Working from home (WFH) and hybrid work have gone from being "new" to the "new normal." Yes, what was once a scary new world during the pandemic has become the standard. Office workers are happy to avoid traveling to an office when possible, and many businesses are happy to oblige.

If you want to be successful as a work-from-home employee, however, investment in quality hardware is key. You see, as people now mostly see and hear you on video chat platforms such as Zoom, you will leave a bad impression if you use a low quality webcam. Shouldn't you put your best foot forward?

Continue reading →

You've probably spent the majority of your career in an office. The commute, the quick chats at the coffee maker, the cleanest bathroom on the third floor -- these trivial details became as much a part of your workday as spreadsheets and meetings.

Then, just like that, everything changed. IT teams scrambled to find a secure way to keep people working from home. Managers questioned how to keep productivity up, and the C-suite kept a wary eye over everything (that, at least, didn’t change).

Continue reading →

Do you use Skype? If yes, it is time to get really excited, as there is some legitimately cool news surrounding Microsoft's wildly popular cross-platform communication software. You see, Skype now has zoom support. Please don't misunderstand things, however, as that is zoom with a lowercase z. In other words, Skype is not getting support for the competing Zoom (with an uppercase Z).

Yes, folks, Microsoft has quite literally added the ability to zoom in on Skype screen-shares. In a new blog post, the Windows 11-maker explains, "It has happened to the best of us. You're in a call and someone shares their screen to show you something. Everyone else is nodding along, but you're squinting at your computer screen trying to read the tiny text they are referencing. It's just too small! With Skype's easy zoom in feature, you don't have to miss out."

Continue reading →

The onset of the coronavirus outbreak prompted the majority of businesses worldwide to shut down. As people get vaccinated and states lift masking and social distancing restrictions, more offices are reopening.

Some large corporations and even small to medium-sized businesses believe remote work was a positive change in the workforce and have decided to keep some employees home. A recent Gallup poll shows that 91 percent of people working remotely for some part of the week want that trend to persist after the pandemic.

Continue reading →

A recent BBC article highlighted the tidal surge of workers looking for new jobs in the post-pandemic world. Dubbed "The Great Resignation", the data paints a startling picture of people "leaving the workforce or switching jobs in droves". A similar survey by Microsoft of more than 30,000 workers showed 41 percent were considering quitting or changing professions within twelve months. Meanwhile yet another study of British and Irish employees showed 38 percent planning to quit in the next six months to a year.

These alarming figures could make any employer break into a sweat, unless they were in the recruitment business. However, in sectors that struggle with high staff turnover even in normal times, the projected increase in labour mobility presents an existential threat. In the contact center industry, for example, where employee turnover is usually around 26 percent annually -- significantly higher than the national average of 10-15 percent -- mapping on the new churn multiplier might even mean total workforce loss.

Continue reading →

Working remotely is no longer a temporary anomaly due to COVID-19. Instead, working from home has become a movement where employees aim to take control of their lives. For instance, workers are saving money by not buying gas for their cars, but more importantly, the lack of a commute means more personal time. Employees can also sleep later rather than sit in traffic.

If you are working form home, I highly recommend investing in quality webcams and audio equipment. If you want to stand out in a meeting, you should be both seen and heard clearly. You don't want to be known as the person that is hard to see or understand.

Continue reading →

As more organizations begin to establish plans to return to the physical office, the majority of employees are still expecting to conduct their work in a hybrid environment post-pandemic. Many businesses are navigating what this means for their infrastructure as a hybrid environment brings its own set of challenges for cybersecurity.

At the start of the pandemic, as physical offices closed and employees were sent to work from home, businesses were forced to immediately adapt their infrastructure and security measures. No longer were employees working from desktop computers behind a firewall in the office. Instead, many were on brand new laptops that were purchased at the last minute and deployed with an immature security posture. With an impending hybrid work environment, organizations are starting to evaluate their temporary security measures in lieu of more permanent controls better suited for the organization.

Continue reading →

Local councils have faced the same pressure as commercial businesses to have people working at home during the pandemic. But a new report shows attacks on UK councils' remote workers rose by 213 percent from March 2020 compared to the previous year.

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests made by technology solutions provider Insight, show that on average councils switched 74 percent of their employees -- more than double the UK average -- to remote working during the pandemic.

Continue reading →

Yeah, COVID-19 changed the world -- we all know this. But nothing changed more than office work environments. Even as the pandemic slowly fades away, many employees are still working from home, with no plans to ever return to a physical office. And so, videoconferencing is more crucial than ever before.

With all of that said, if your webcam is of poor quality, it can reflect on you negatively. Look, it may not be your fault, but a grainy video feed is akin to going into an in-person meeting with a big stain on your shirt. In other words, investing in a high-quality camera can be very impactful on your perceived job performance -- it could literally have an affect on other peoples' perception of you.

Continue reading →

The pandemic forced many employees into remote work, and cybercriminals are looking to exploit the situation by directly attacking remote desktop services as they become publicly available. Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) has become a prime target. According to a study released by the cybersecurity firm ESET, attacks against RDP have increased a stunning 768 percent over the course of 2020. Malware packages like Trickbot now include RDP scanners to search for open RDP ports, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have begun using RDP as a way to magnify their impact.

This is not to say that RDP or Windows are inherently bad. RDP is an extremely useful, complex, and functionally rich protocol for remote access. The open source project I work on, Apache Guacamole, leverages RDP internally as one of its supported protocols.

Continue reading →

As companies near the one-year mark of the sudden shift to a 100 percent remote workforce, corporate leadership is forced to consider a new vision. Sure, remote work was a "thing" before the pandemic hit, but it was usually a day or two a week, generally a perk reserved for management. COVID-19 became the great equalizer -- everyone logged in from home every single workday.

Over the last 11 months, we’ve learned a lot about what works (and what doesn’t). Organizations have had to test and fortify their systems to support remote teams, practices and communication preferences have changed, and employees and management have grown increasingly confident that productivity and innovation can continue outside the confines of corporate headquarters.

Continue reading →

COVID-19 has changed the world for many of us, and led to unprecedented numbers of people working from home. Quite what the future will hold for businesses once the pandemic is over remains to be seen, but it’s safe to say that not everyone will be headed back to the office.

Microsoft 365 and Teams has made it a lot easier, and more practical, for people to work and learn from home, and on Thursday, Feb 4 the software giant will be revealing what’s next for those two important tools.

Continue reading →

COVID-19 has completely transformed the way we work. As the rapid spread of the virus forced the UK Government to impose a national lockdown on March 23 2020, businesses across the country were forced overnight to operate remotely. Indeed, many employees have not worked in a traditional office setting for almost one year.

In most cases, workforces have successfully acclimatized to this 'new normal'. Communication platforms such as Zoom and Slack have reigned supreme, ensuring that teams are able to communicate on a daily basis with little hindrance to their performance.

Continue reading →

The shift to remote work has brought on a new set of operational and security challenges for many organizations. A majority of employees will not be returning to the office anytime soon, evidenced by Google’s recent expansion of its work from home (WFH) mandate until July 2021, along with the current state of the world in general. With the future of work now a reality, it is pivotal that organizations learn how to effectively manage remote teams securely.

There are many steps managers and organizations can take to ensure their remote workforce is operating at its best while remaining secure. The key to this whole practice is treating offsite employees the same as in-house by implementing new endpoint management, IT, and security processes that lead to the same end results that were achieved when folks were in the office. But what are the key steps managers should keep in mind to navigate these unchartered waters? What can organizations do to better manage and secure their remote workforces? 

Continue reading →

Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C are both great interfaces, but there is a problem -- they share the same connector. While Thunderbolt 3 computers can interface with USB-C devices, computers that only have USB-C cannot interface with Thunderbolt 3 devices. While this is easy for technology enthusiasts to understand, it can cause confusion for the average consumer. When wanting to buy a docking station, for instance, a shopper may accidentally choose the wrong one. Thankfully, there are docks these days that can work with both.

Today, popular company Plugable launches its latest such product. Called "TBT3-UDC1," this docking station is optimized for both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C computers (on both Windows and macOS). This isn't just helpful to unsure consumers, but also, it can be great for businesses and families that are utilizing both computer types. Since the host port is on the front, users can very easily plug in without having to worry about compatibility. It has all the ports you need too, such as Ethernet, 3.5mm audio, USB-A, USB-C and dual DisplayPort. While it does lack an SD card reader, you can easily add a dongle such as this one.

Continue reading →