Businesses Began Work-at-Home Lacking Workforce Readiness and Risk Assessments

A new report by a Connecticut-headquartered company with expertise in employee assessment reveals that many employees lack the skills and culture to maintain productivity remotely and raises red flags that businesses ought to consider as a result of the sudden, massive shift to employees working from home.

The report, by Trumbull-based Questionmark, calls on corporate leaders to understand the vulnerabilities in order to respond effectively, maintaining productivity and assisting workers in adjusting effectively to the current realities.

Among the key areas where attention is needed:  identifying training needs, clarifying expectations of home workers, and cybersecurity risk assessment.   

The report found that “despite the increased prevalence of technology in the workplace, many are struggling to adjust to new tools.”  For example, “with many workers using file sharing technology, collaboration apps and video conferencing facilities for the first time, there is an increased danger of compliance failures or, more simply, through work getting lost or misplaced.”

In addition, the report points out, “Zoom, the video meeting software company, has seen its share price nearly double over the past month. Microsoft Teams, which lets workers video chat, message, and share documents, has seen a 500 percent uptake in some countries.”

These increases in usage suggest that workers are having to adapt to new technologies without the time for training, the report notes. In addition, the pace of recent changes has left employees little time to think through creating a professional environment at home.

John Kleeman, Founder and Executive Director of Questionmark said: “a month in to mass remote working and it’s becoming clear that parts of the workforce do not have the cultural or technical skills needed for working from home.”

“By assessing the ‘remote readiness’ of staff, employers can ensure that everyone is on the same page.  Training can be targeted and clear expectations can be set”.

The report stresses the importance of assessing the technical remote working skills of staff and measuring employees’ understanding of their company’s expectations around at-home working. The unanticipated and untrained use of new technology can make it “too easy for arguments and fallouts to come from misunderstandings” the report also notes.

There are also other potential pitfalls that could bring substantial fiscal impacts.  Indicating that “security experts have predicted that while working from home people will innocently fail to observe the strict data protocols they usually abide by,” the report notes that “this will include using unsecure personal laptops to access sensitive information and downloading files to unauthorized USB sticks.”

Beyond that, “experts predict that hackers and phishers will take advantage of the current crisis to increase scams and attempt to breach security,” the report warns.

Another common risk highlighted in the report is opening an email attachment which contains a computer virus. “As well as being an issue of compliance, this could cause vital work to be lost or could corrupt files and important documents.”

“Organizations are also noticing barriers to remote working that go beyond the technical,” the report explains. “It’s clear from a glance at social media that ‘working from home’ means different things to different people. For some, it is interpreted as carrying out a normal day’s work. To others, it’s been taken as a simple requirement to listen out for the phone whilst gardening, relaxing or home schooling.”

The report also notes that “certain ‘soft skills’ are more important to working from home than technical know-how. These include communication, self-discipline, trustworthiness and adaptability. Depending on the role of the employee, these skills may not have been adequately developed back when they were in the office.”

Questionmark provides a secure enterprise-grade assessment platform and professional services to organizations around the world, with data centers in the U.S., Australia and the U.K. providing “assessments which are valid, reliable, fair and defensible.”