Tag Archives: Employees
Happier Employees Drive Your Organization’s Success & Growth
The Key to Successful Organizations: Measuring and Increasing Employee Work Happiness
Jeff Sutherland, the author of , says, “Happy people aren’t happy because they are successful; they’re successful because they are happy. Happiness is a predictive measure.” If you’ve read his book, you’re familiar with the idea that even a slight increase in happiness can deliver a big impact, both professionally and personally.
The pitfall of most organizations is failing to consider how employee happiness affects the workplace. While 2020 has been a difficult year for most companies with rising unemployment rates, layoffs and pay cuts, we would argue that now is the time to invest in a better, happier future for your employees. As many organizations are forced to rework the way they operate—i.e., shifting to remote workforces—the door has already been opened for change. Growth is often prompted by change and opposition, and our experience has taught us that authentic, long-lasting happiness comes through growth, leaning and progress.
Employee Work Happiness for the Win
Employers are at the helm of their company culture, so why not enable your employees to thrive and be happy in the workplace? In order to do this, it’s important to establish an employee work happiness baseline and measure improvement going forward.
and it has made a huge difference in our success and overall employee satisfaction. Does focusing on your employees’ work happiness sound like the best next step for your company? Here are 3 ways to get started with establishing an employee happiness baseline:
Individual Reviews
Many companies have annual reviews in place, but the way you go about these is key. Do you just offer a check-box style form that employees fill out annually or quarterly? Or, do you really take the time to talk with each of your employees about what they did well since the last review and where they could be better going forward? Employees can tell when you really invest in and care about their success within your company. Talking about career progress and taking the time to show you care as an organization and management team can really impact employee workplace happiness.
If you don’t already have employee reviews in place, start with a simple set of questions to determine employee happiness levels, expectations and details about their roles and positions within your company.
Company Surveys
Another way to get honest, constructive feedback about your organization is to initiate anonymous surveys across your organization. We are fans of anonymous surveys because they really give employees the chance to be open and provide feedback that they may not otherwise feel comfortable providing (more on this to come…). Form your questions around how employees are feeling, how they think your organization is doing and identifying which areas employees think you can improve.
Company Policies and Culture
Circling back to the part about employees feeling comfortable to give honest feedback—a safe environment enables employees to be honest and open. Employees who feel like they aren’t able to start a conversation about concerns they have, their work, their role within the company or their position aren’t happy employees. Not to mention, how can you expect employees to deliver their best work when they are afraid?
Implementing these three measures will pave the way to improving your organization’s success and your employee happiness levels. The desire of employees to engage, commit and strive to be successful will follow the improvements they see within your organization.
Employees Play a Role in Their Work Happiness, Too
Sure, you have an important part in fostering employee workplace happiness within your organization—but so do employees. As an employee, you can’t wait for your company to do everything; you need to understand it just as important for you to be proactive in working toward your happiness. How? Here are some things you, as an employee, can do to work toward both personal and professional happiness:
Important factors outside of the workplace for your overall workplace happiness:
- Eating a well-rounded diet
- Staying hydrated with water, not just caffeinated or sugary beverages
- Move your body
- Get the right amount of sleep to feel well rested, healthy and happy
- Establish work/life boundaries—a balanced life is important
Important career-related factors for your overall work happiness:
- Set goals: Goals need to be specific, measurable and meaningful. This can include new certifications, growing your skill sets and more.
- Continue to learn: Ask questions and expand your knowledge
- Take initiative to make changes to company policies by proposing improvement plans
- Identify the tasks you really enjoy at work and find ways to do more of these tasks
- Communicate realistic expectations to your managers and converse about what it will take to achieve specific changes
It may come as a surprise, but changes to the amount of money you make () and your official title won’t necessarily make you happier in your career—or at least may not do so long-term (think: the ).
AKA’s culture focuses on employee work happiness, and so can yours. if you’re searching for an organization that cares about YOU.
ABOUT AKA ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS
specializes in making it easier to do business, simplifying processes and reducing risks. With agility, expertise, and original industry solutions, we embrace projects other technology firms avoid—regardless of their complexity. As a true strategic partner, we help organizations slay the dragons that are keeping them from innovating their way to greatness. Call us at 212-502-3900!
Article by: Matthew Case and Adolfo Ramirez | 212-502-3900
Matthew Case has worked with CRM for 9 years, specializing in CRM architecture, interface design, user adoption, and change management. As AKA’s Media Practice Lead for more than a decade, Adolfo has a history of successful CRM and ERP projects across Media and other industries.
Track Leaderboards, Top Performing employees and CRUD actions in Dynamics 365 CRM
Managing workforce and tracking its performance leads to an effective business process in return increasing the productivity of an organization. Since the workforce in Dynamics 365 CRM can be of varying capacity, it is complex to track each employee individually. This is where the productivity app user adoption monitor kicks tracking the user adoption of the organization. User adoption is a necessary element of every organization to be in sync with its workforce performance and therefore make strategies to launch required training program or to motivate the team.
helps in tracking the adoption of any system aptly. With the help of this app it is possible to Create, Read, Update and Delete. For instance say Rhea is the manager of an organization and she wants to track when a record is created in Account, Lead, Opportunity and few other entities by her subordinates. She has the option to configure user adoption for her team members and track the record creation of those members whose user adoption is turned on. She can .
Rhea goes to Manage Entity Action and specifies the time period when she wants to track these actions. Therefore, without individually tracking each user she has collective information.
Furthermore Rhea can also track other custom actions like System User login, Opportunity won, Lead qualified, etc. for enabled users.
Rhea can also view Leaderboard using which she can track the top-performing employees. She can easily view the activity break-up and each user’s performance across Dynamics 365 CRM application through Dashboard visualizations to list out key metrics.
Thus, you have seen how using User Adoption Monitor she can quickly monitor the performance of each employee and reward them or launch training perform.
To know more, download this app from Website or AppSource for a free trial of 15 days.
Businesses and Employees Must Prepare for W-4 Changes Coming in January 2020
Posted by Marc Holliday, Senior Product Marketing Manager
Changes are coming to one of the most ubiquitous tax forms, so taxpayers—and businesses— need to be prepared.
Most commonly referred to as Form W-4, the Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate determines the amount of Federal Income Taxes to be withheld from an employee’s paycheck. Employees fill it out when they start a new job, have a change in marital status, or some other material change in their financial situation occurs such as a spouse getting a new job or when adding dependents for birth or adoption.
The IRS encourages everyone to use the Tax Withholding Estimator to perform a quick paycheck checkup to protect against having too little tax withheld and facing an unexpected tax bill. This is even more important following the recent changes to the tax law for 2018 and beyond.
In December 2017, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed into law and, after being delayed a year, changes to Form W-4 are going into effect for the 2020 tax year.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest changes coming in 2020:
The elimination of withholding allowances on the form itself
Allowances are no longer used for the redesigned Form W-4 to increase transparency, simplicity and accuracy. In the past, the value of a withholding allowance was tied to the amount of the personal exemption. With the new law, you cannot claim personal exemptions or dependency exemptions. [1] Instead, allowances are represented as actual dollar amounts based on formulas found on the new form.
Changes to Employee Filing Status
Employees will still have three options to choose from in the new form, but they are slightly different. The options have gone from:
- Single or married filing separately
- Married filing jointly
- Head of household.
To:
- Single
- Married
- Married but withholding at a higher rate.
If no status is filled out, the default is single with no adjustments.
Impact on Employees
Employees who have filled out a W-4 in 2019 or before are not required to fill out a new W-4 in 2020.
Impact on Employers
Employers must be prepared for two scenarios for the adoption of the new form:
- Employees hired after January 1, 2020 will need to fill out the new W-4
- Anyone wishing to adjust their withholding after January 1, 2020 must use the new form
Check your Payroll Solution
Businesses should ask if or when their payroll solution will be offering the new form. Make sure the same withholding tables are used for either the old or new form. Since employee’s who filled out a W-4 prior to 2020 do not have to fill out another form, it is important that the payroll system correctly account for the withholding and not flag an employee as not having filled out the form.
Employers should also look for a payroll solution that implements effective dating throughout the system. It should also provide the reporting and analytics to quickly identify missing W-4s and help identify which employees are subject to the new form or are compliant using the old form.
To learn more about how NetSuite SuitePeople Payroll can help you process payroll in minutes not hours, listen to how a NetSuite customer, Advanced Piping Products, streamlined its payroll processes.
by NetSuite filed under
How Banks Can Incite Employees to Track Referrals in the New CRM System
A CRM system is only valuable if it used.
It doesn’t matter which system you selected, or how much money you spent; if the information it contains is not updated, current, and trustworthy, it will do you no good. In fact, it can actually cause more harm than having no system at all. And if the information is there, but nobody looks at it, that also has no benefit.
There must be something management can do to motivate employees to use the new system. Sometimes a carrot works better than a stick, and sometimes the two are interchangeable.
The stick would be that if you don’t enter the information, you don’t get credit for the work you did. Credit needs to be given only if employees are utilizing the tool. If your employees are neglecting to enter updates into your CRM system, there must be some motivator to change their behavior: the carrot.
Incentives
You have to provide an incentive for your employees. Make a policy that will be either part of their job performance revue or have a company-wide or bank-wide incentive campaign.
For example, the people, or the branch, that have the most completed profiles will get some reward. Once the behavior is a pattern, it’s easier to sustain. Or give $ 25.00 every time there is a qualified referral. Then if an account is opened, money goes into a pool of credit for their branch because they sent a good referral that actually led to new business.
Accountability
Some banks tie the information entered into CRM to a referral bonus. If the employee does not put the referral into the CRM system, they do not get credit for it. That credit is a monetary referral payment (carrot!). They may make some insurance or investment referrals. And if they haven’t put those into the CRM system, at the end of the month if an account was opened, they won’t be credited for the referral. That directly affects their pocket.
Updating your CRM It is also a security measure because clients may move to other branches. Putting the referral into the CRM system is a way for your employee to claim it as theirs. Even if an account is opened at a different branch the original rep can say, “Nope, here are the notes, with timestamp in CRM, showing that I have been working with that customer for months.”
Which Banker Gets Credit?
Here’s a scenario that happened recently at one bank where one of the bankers was working on an investment relationship for a client. She knew the mother had sold her house, and there was going to be investable dollars coming in. She had referred her to the investment department a year earlier, but the person she referred her to worked the lead but just didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, so she marked it as “lost lead” in CRM. However, the notes remained in the CRM system.
When the customer came back to the bank, she now had the cash, and she sat and waited for the banker who happened to be out sick that day. So she left intending to come back another day. Instead, on her way home, she stopped at a different branch just to throw the check into her account. The teller at that bank did a good job saying, “Hey, this is a lot of money, are you sure you don’t want to do something more with this?” The customer said, “Well, actually I do.” So, that teller referred her to someone at that branch. This interaction was also recorded in the CRM system. But now there was this conflict: who had referred the lead?
The teller didn’t do anything wrong. The client didn’t say to the teller that she was already working with somebody else. The teller did what she was trained to do, and we don’t want to punish her now.
Because of the notes in the CRM system, the credit was split to create a fair outcome for everyone who had put work into this client.
This happens all the time; a client walks into a different branch, the bankers think they own the client. But the client thinks the bankers are all one big family, so it doesn’t matter who referred them.
Close the Loop
Even when referrals are entered, the loop still needs to be closed when the deal is done.
Some banks run a monthly report that shows closed investment relationships based off of referrals from the branch. And unless it’s in the CRM system they don’t get the credit. So, somebody in a position of a “data steward” is tasked to make sure the branches get their credit, and that the advisors have “flipped the switch” in the CRM system to confirm that the referral has become a relationship.
Before the end of the month they have to go in and turn the referral into an open account, pulling it from their active pipeline to their production pipeline. Then the report is run, and the dollars can be verified.
Crowe CRM for Banking
Crowe works with 1,800 financial services organizations across the country, including more than two-thirds of the top 100 U.S. banks. With Crowe , you can get a true 360-degree view of the customer – with a single view into all communications, interactions, operations, and relationships.
Key features:
- Activity management: Quickly capture call notes and schedule follow-up activities for efficient and timely follow-up. Efficient activity management increases revenue opportunity, accelerates lead conversion rates, and allows a proactive approach to customer communication.
- Lead management: Automate your lead management and sales qualification process in one central location. Convert incoming leads from email messages and use-guided dialogues to streamline the qualification process.
- Network management: Leverage built-in LinkedIn and other social media integrations to build network connections, drive new referral leads, and create leads and contacts in your CRM software without retyping.
Best of all, Crowe CRM for Banking has a familiar, easy-to-use interface, with familiar tools, such as Microsoft Outlook, Excel, and Word, easing user adoption and lowering the cost of learning. Remember, the most effective system is the one that your team will use.
For more information about , contact us at +1 877 600 2253 or visit
By Ryan Plourde, Crowe, Microsoft Dynamics Gold Partner,
Professional Services Firms Learn To “Listen” To Clients And Employees To Drive Success
Competing in a high-growth market is both an exciting opportunity and a source of surprises for midsize professional services firms. After spending years developing a deep bench of the best talent, firms acquire a reputation for delivering “superb” services at a competitive price. But as comparisons against competitors loom more extensively, clients are constantly evolving their criteria for a successful engagement.
How can professional services firms differentiate themselves in a way that resonates with existing and potential clients? The answer is acquiring, analyzing, and sharing the right data about clients to deliver a high-value, personalized experience. According to the IDC InfoBrief “Becoming a Best-Run Professional Services Company: How Growing Midsize Firms Use Technology and Innovation to Succeed,” high-performing (or best-run) midsize firms are leading the way in this area of experience management.
Source: “Becoming a Best-Run Professional Services Company: How Growing Midsize Firms Use Technology and Innovation to Succeed,” IDC, sponsored by SAP, 2019.
The X’s and O’s of experience management
In the professional services industry, one faulty offering or unsuccessful engagement means much more than unhappy clients and loss of future revenue. It also negatively impacts workforce morale and degrades the firm’s relationships with its business partners.
Such a chain reaction of negativity and loss can be avoided when firms connect two distinctly separate types of data in their vast collection of information:
- Operational data (O-data): Hard numbers – for example, costs, accounting, and sales – inform all lines of business across a wide variety of roles, as well as what is happening in business operations, the industry, and the global marketplace.
- Experience data (X-data): The emotions, thoughts, and sentiments of clients, employees, and partners are captured to better understand why specific outcomes happen and predict how changing preferences may impact future business success.
All too often, professional services firms only rely on their operational data when evaluating their status with a client. However, this practice tells just part of the story.
By blending X-data and O-data, firms can create, monitor, and manage every experience. Doing so allows them to foster deep relationships between clients, employees, and partners to drive value to their bottom-line goals as well as the firm’s.
Relentless focus on experience is achievable – no matter your size
The logic behind the data philosophy of experience management is simple, clear, and proven. Every aspect of a professional services business is a powerful experiential force that influences how people engage, communicate, and remain loyal.
For example, an engagement may be tracking fine from a budget and revenue perspective. However, if the customer is not happy and feels that things are amiss, there is a strong chance this client will move on once the project is done, leaving any promise of future revenue at risk.
All firms, regardless of size, possess the ability to capture O-data – in fact, they do it every day when determining if engagements are on time, on budget, and profitable. However, to understand how experience impacts clients, employees, and partners, firms need to embed “listening posts” into their processes to acquire and analyze X-data to deepen insights and their call to action.
From clients to employees and partners, every area of the business is a source of operational and experiential insight that ensures firms act in ways that can lead to the right action every time. And before you know it, your clients are your fans, your employees are your evangelists, and your partners are your advocates.
Learn more
Read these resources to find out how best-run midsize professional services firms are focusing relentlessly on clients by evolving their financial models, addressing evolving risks, using nontraditional talent engagement models, and supporting digital sales and marketing strategies.
How the Right CRM System Helps Banks Identify Star Employees
How good are your team members at referring customers to other services offered by your bank to expand your “”?
With the right CRM system, you can run activity reports based on employees. You can see how many referrals they have attempted to make, if the prospects were qualified or not, and if the referral resulted in additional revenue to the bank. This can be especially helpful during an employee’s annual review.
A low score on these activities can highlight the need for additional training or an updated incentive plan. It can also spotlight those few employees who are performing far above the others.
For example, if your bank has one hundred tellers, there may be five that really stand out as doing more than the others. You can single them out for commendation, give them additional responsibility, or promote them to a higher position.
The same analysis can be used for all departments. Is the sales team cross-referring to other departments? Are the commercial lenders sending anything into investments and back to the bank? You can easily see who are the givers and not just the takers.
The Right CRM System for Banking
A well-defined and executed customer relationship management (CRM) strategy with Microsoft Dynamics 365 at its center can help banks focus on imperatives such as increased customer acquisition, better customer engagement, and improved efficiency and revenue.
Crowe works with 1,800 financial services organizations across the country, including more than two-thirds of the top 100 U.S. banks.
, built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, empowers bank staff with the tools and information needed to efficiently deliver high-quality, personalized service – for all interactions, across all channels. It gives managers and team members the information they need to be effective.
For more information about , contact us at +1 877 600 2253 or crminfo@crowe.com.
Download the eBook:
By Ryan Plourde, Crowe, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner,
Why are Employees Fired up about Working in Dynamics 365 Services?
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As my internship comes to a close, I wanted to gather the feedback I received from Dynamics 365 employees and turn it into something others could gain insight from. Of the many great things said about…(read more)
Tech Companies Placing Increased Emphasis On Hiring Employees With Autism
If you look around the tech industry and study some of the hiring trends in leading organizations, you’ll find that many are turning to candidates with autism spectrum disorders. And thanks to new technologies and resources, these effects are mutually beneficial.
Autism as an asset in the workplace
“Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior,” the National Institute of Mental Health explains. “Although autism can be diagnosed at any age, it is said to be a ‘developmental disorder’ because symptoms generally appear in the first two years of life.”
People with ASD have varying degrees of difficulty with communication and social interaction. They also tend to exhibit restricted interests, repetitive behaviors, and obsessive focuses. Because of these symptoms, people with ASD find it difficult to function typically in school, work, and other social areas of life.
Autism is referred to as a spectrum disorder because of the wide variation in severity of symptoms. Some people can be completely functional and live independently, while other individuals require hands-on caregivers.
According to AutismSpeaks.org, nearly one in 59 children are diagnosed with some form of ASD. This marks a 15% increase since 2016 and a 211% increase since 2008. Whether there’s actually been an increase in autism or these statistics reflect an increased understanding of what ASD entails is not clear. Either way, millions of autistic children are growing into autistic adults who need employment. And until recently, there haven’t been many opportunities available. In fact, nearly half of people with autism never find work.
“When we learned that last year – that about 40% of people were never getting employment or continuing their education – we wondered, ‘Why is that, and what happens to them?’’” research scientist Anne Roux tells NPR.
In many cases, face-to-face interviews prevent individuals with autism from getting a fair shake at jobs. They don’t tend to excel in this area, which makes it difficult to land competitive roles. They also have difficulty being flexible and adapting to changing job duties. Generally speaking, they’re much more comfortable with repetitive, predictable tasks (even ones that are technical or challenging).
But in recent years, more companies have placed an emphasis on hiring people with autism – and not just as a feel-good story or charitable cause. Employers are discovering that people with autism yield immense value in the workplace. In particular, tech companies have taken notice.
Individuals who are on the spectrum are often intellectually advanced. They also think differently than the average person, which enables them to be fantastic innovators and problem solvers. When most people are looking at an issue from one angle, they have the ability to see it from a totally different perspective.
People with ASD are also able to focus on technical tasks for longer periods of time without losing attention or becoming distracted. This is perfect for tasks like software testing.
There’s also a practical side to this. As technology has improved, it’s become easier for organizations to train people with autism in a manner that suits their unique gifts and learning styles. Video self-modeling is a great example of this.
“Video self-modeling a form of visual learning,” Intelligent Video Solutions explains. “Using this method, individuals observe themselves performing a desired behavior or task successfully. They view themselves doing this on video and then imitate those actions. Studies show that video self-modeling is particularly helpful for people with autism.”
As the industry becomes more aware of the practicality of hiring people on the spectrum, more opportunities will emerge. And as new opportunities are presented, stereotypes and misunderstandings will be replaced with one simple truth: People with autism offer tremendous value – both as individuals and as professionals.
The hope and opportunity of employment
As more people with autism are hired, a new sense of hope and opportunity emerges. Not only do jobs provide a stream of income, but they also offer dignity and purpose. And for the parents and family members of people with ASD, it offers a reason to be hopeful for the future. Here’s to watching this trend become a mainstay in the American workplace!
To learn more about how talent practices impact every stage of the employee lifecycle, read the e-book, “Talent and the Future of Work: The Essential Guide.”
Creating a One-stop Data Shop for Customers and Employees with TIBCO
Traditionally a waste logistics and transportation company, Waste Management has seen significant growth in recent years. To help sustain and even expand upon this growth, the company researched unique new services they could offer customers based on a wide variety of data, such as converting waste into materials that can be used or recycled instead of dumped in a landfill. The company needed a flexible, robust analytics platform to help sift through all of this data to provide consumable information to customers and employees.
Waste Management had two major criteria for their analytics platform purchase: A system that could take in spreadsheets from many different systems (even from customers outside the firewall) and easily combine them, and the ability to easily create dashboards on the fly.
Waste Management chose TIBCO Spotfire to access and visualize all of its information. After using Spotfire to take data from spreadsheets and transform it, the company experienced significant improvement and acceleration in operations.
“I would say it’s a 90 percent improvement in terms of speed,” said Hsuan. “Along with that, comes the accuracy and the ability for us to integrate data scrubbing and other elements to improve the overall process.”
Because of this improvement, Waste Management is now able to take on more customers consuming more services. In addition, Spotfire allows stakeholders and customers to easily filter and see the specific information they want to see which has also helped the company retain accounts and increase customer lifetime value.
Waste Management is a customer-centric business, providing a wide variety of services for customers in the public, commercial property, manufacturing, and industrial sectors. Spotfire is the platform they use to put their customers first.
For the full case study, read how Waste Management is cultivating customer-centric innovation with TIBCO Spotfire.
Employees: Your Strongest Or Weakest Link In Cybersecurity
A business organization can come up with detailed and advanced cybersecurity strategies, but it’s impossible to fully secure the business without help from your employees. And in many cases, employees prove to be the weakest link in the chain.
It all comes down to your people
Hackers are actually less of a threat than the employees you’ve hired and interact with daily, according to a study by Shred-It, a leading information security company.
According to the report, 47 percent of business leaders say human errors – such as accidental loss of a device or document – have led to data breaches within their organizations. The report surveyed more than 1,000 small business owners and executives in the United States, suggesting that efforts to strengthen your cybersecurity may need to center on your employees.
“Many of the most dangerous offenses by employees are things that they might not even think about as risky behavior,” CNBC reports. “A surprising number of workers surveyed by Shred-it admitted to bad security behavior at work; over 25 percent said that they leave their computer unlocked and unattended. Even taking notes on paper, or leaving papers out on your desk, can have unintended consequences.”
Fortunately, 78 percent of executives and 28 percent of small business owners plan to train their staff on better information-security policies and procedures in the coming months – and there’s nothing stopping you from doing the same in your organization.
How to empower your employees
Getting employees to understand the significance of cybersecurity threats is a start. But you also need to implement specific rules and processes that set your team up for success. Here are some suggestions:
1. Invest in thorough training
The right time to train employees on cybersecurity policies is when you onboard them. In doing so, you set clear expectations and provide a baseline of knowledge that can go with the employee throughout their time in the organization.
But training shouldn’t be limited to an isolated training session on the first day of work. Regular training should be implemented to keep employees on top of evolving threats and new processes.
2. Use the right tools
While there’s certainly a behavioral element to cybersecurity, there are also plenty of proactive steps you can take to ensure employees don’t find themselves in compromising situations.
Adopting a comprehensive small business security software solution is helpful in creating a sturdy backbone and generous safety net. Norton Antivirus is one good option.
Top10.com explains, “The program warns the user prior to downloading something that could be a threat, monitors apps and social media to screen out privacy risks and other threatening behavior, blocks spam from employee inboxes, remembers and secures usernames and passwords, and can locate lost or stolen devices and lock – and wipe – them remotely in order to keep data secure even in the event of theft.”
Again, you don’t want employees downloading risky apps, opening up spam emails, getting lazy with passwords, and leaving devices out in the open, but it’s nice to have some additional security mechanisms to protect you in situations where someone might be forgetful or irresponsible.
3. Establish strict remote working policies
The Shred-It study shows that 86 percent of C-suite executives and 60 percent of small business owners are in agreement that the risk of data breach is higher when employees work off-site than when they’re in the office.
To reduce your risk, make sure you have policies in place for how employees use company devices, access company information, communicate, and share data. It might be slightly cumbersome, but it’s better to be safer than sorry.
Prioritizing cybersecurity to the fullest
There are times when it may seem easier to focus on the tangible components of running your business – like reviewing sales numbers, shaping your advertising strategy, and meeting with clients to close deals. But don’t push cybersecurity to the back burner.
Even though much of the day-to-day happenings occur behind the scenes, strong security is equally as important as the elements of your business that require direct interaction and yield tactile responses. Empower your employees, hold them accountable, and stay the course.
For more on security strategies, see How To Protect Your Business Against Insider Attacks.