Working from a remote location is the way employees do things and how businesses operate these days. It certainly has its perks, such as more flexibility, lower costs, a chance for better work-life balance, and less time with irritating co-workers (although interfering cats on keyboards and Zoom calls might be an even exchange.) However, remote work also has its obstacles and challenges and businesses are finding that new solutions to these challenges are among the top priorities to keep their companies running smoothly.
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The Hurdles To Employee Productivity
Some of the most prominent hurdles to employee productivity are network reliability and network security. No less than 94% of remote employees report that issues such as these are affecting their ability to do their jobs proficiently.
With the sharp increase in remote work since the beginning of 2020, 60% of companies report an increase in cyberattacks also. VDI or RDP account for 60% of these attacks; phishing accounts for 30%, and VPN vulnerability accounts for another 20%. Companies reporting satisfaction in their network security is also down by 27% compared to where it was before the COVID pandemic.
Network reliability is also a serious problem with 78% of employees reporting that they either could not finish their work due to poor connection, or sometimes had to use phones and hotspots to work during the highest level of the COVID quarantine. Sixty-nine percent also report having issues with their VPN, and with in-home data usage being up by 38% since the start of 2020, real-time services like video conferencing and VoIP are being affected by slow or insecure network connections. Hackers found Zoom vulnerabilities to be a new playground at the beginning of the pandemic. In 2021, only 38% of companies feel confident that they have the everything they need to manage remote work and tackle all the inherent security risks.
The Future Of Networking
Networks must rise to meet the challenge of a remote business world with stronger security, including zero-trust access and full visibility, simplified connectivity, and faster networking with increased network reliability and optimized protocols and routes.
It’s becoming clear that a remote workforce requires a better, private network. Our new way of doing business requires a network that uses a cloud-based SASE model; a network that takes only minutes, rather than weeks, to set up; that is software based and requires no hardware roll-out; one that upgrades network security to zero-trust, increases network performance by 25x, and significantly lowers the cost of ownership.
Employee and business functionality are evolving at a fast pace. The internet must evolve with them. Learn more about the future of networking in the infographic below:
