While evolutionary change to cloud-based ‘work from anywhere’ systems had been well underway for years, nobody could have predicted the upheaval wrought by the 2020 global pandemic, and the magnificent way that UCaaS stepped up to keep the world working — not just in business, but from education to health, in every continent.

But it will come as no surprise that Core’s recent research report “2020 was a year of change: how ready was the market, and how ready were you?” identified that 86% of IT teams were unprepared for the overnight switch to remote working they had to deal with, and suffered from a range of problems including lack of equipment, training, and infrastructure. For financial services in particular, regulatory and compliance demands made the switch even more challenging.

This all led to a lack of oversight and the inevitable rise of shadow IT — leaving 56% of respondents feeling vulnerable to security breaches, particularly where personal devices have been pressed into business use, and all sorts of applications and tools downloaded to support communication and collaboration continuity. Notably, 72% of the organisations Core spoke to had seen employees downloading and using unsanctioned video conferencing tools, probably driven as much by a human need to connect face to face at a time of stress and uncertainty as much as by business continuity reasons.

Of course during a crisis, corners are cut and pragmatic solutions found, but one year into the emergency and with a roadmap to a stable future at least mapped out by politicians, decision-makers are turning their focus towards what employees in the financial sector really need to do their job… Wherever they are doing it.

Focus on the employee experience

Core’s report gets to the heart of the solution to this problem, and suggests that enterprises offer best-in-breed equipment and solutions to their teams in the first place:

“Put simply, give users what they want, and they won’t seek workarounds for maintaining business as usual… Delivering high-quality and intuitive solutions that empower users is the best way to combat shadow IT — while also inspiring more effective compliance”

If the collaboration suite provided by the business has all the functionality they need to do their job while still complying with the high regulatory demanded in the financial sector, no one will need to download anything else. And when everything is accessible through a single portal — like Microsoft Teams — then this removes any conflict between the IT department and the end-user.

Users deserve a one-stop-shop

While policymakers and politicians debate the extent to which ‘normal’ office working will resume, every knowledge-worker who has managed to keep going from home for 12 months has learned many things, both about their working preferences, and their expectations for management and technical support.

Going forward they deserve tools that keep them safe, but at the same time let them do their best work, with the least friction involved — whether they’re returning to their old place of work, continuing to work from home, or carving out a personalised hybrid schedule going forward. They deserve to use their own devices if preferred, but to have their business tool suite separately managed and configured, independent of their personal apps, content, and calling tariffs.

And above all they deserve to have their experience and learning validated and engaged with, to be part of the ‘new normal’ each business is striving to create, as we return from this strange and transformative year.

Enterprises who embrace the opportunities that hybrid working and the flexible future has to offer, will find a loyal and resilient workforce ready to grow and change with them, as they prioritise robust UCaaS solutions for their teams.

You can learn more by downloading Core’s report “2020 was a year of change: how ready was the market, and how ready were you?” today.

 



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