You Need to Actively Support Your Employees

We don’t believe for one second that employees want to do the wrong thing; after all, they work for you for a reason, that reason being they want to do the job you hired them to do. Unfortunately, technology can often make it so that this process becomes difficult. If you don’t invest time and effort into ensuring that your team’s technology and resources are available when they need them most, you risk them choosing unproductive or even unsecured work methods.

Employees Using Unsecured Devices

Employees will prefer to use their work technology to fulfill their day-to-day obligations. These devices might include a desktop, a work-issued laptop, and maybe a mobile device. If these devices are not maintained properly, they will not work properly, leading your employees to find solutions that are outside of your purview. This might include their personal laptop or smartphone, devices that are not secured using your company’s security solution.

The importance of maintaining your company’s technology and devices cannot be understated, so we recommend implementing a solution that allows you to manage and maintain your devices with ease. Furthermore, you should add in a Bring Your Own Device policy that determines how and when your employees are allowed to use their personal devices for work-related purposes. This will be beneficial for your company in the long run.

Unauthorized Software Downloads

Your staff might occasionally require specific tools to do a specific task or perform a function. If they do not have access to these tools, then they will find a different way to do the job, or they won’t do the job at all. It’s like trying to use a butter knife like a flat-head screwdriver. Sure, it might get the job done in the moment, but if you strip the screw, you risk the job being much more difficult or downright impossible later on. The same can be said for when your staff tries to download alternative solutions to do a job; these freeware applications can be dangerous for your business for several reasons.

For one, all software your business uses on the regular requires a software license. If the software license on any of your employees’ computers expires, they will experience a disruption to their productivity and be required to find another way to get the job done. If they download the wrong application, they could put your business at risk of experiencing a security breach or using a counterfeit software license. It might solve an issue in the short term, but it creates long-term problems, especially if you ever become subject to a security issue or network audit.

The best way to prevent your employees from inadvertently causing trouble for you by downloading unauthorized software or using unsecured devices is to make sure that they have consistent and reliable access to the tools you provide, as well as ensure that the tools are properly maintained. You can make this happen through the use of proactive maintenance and management. If you are proactive in this regard, you prevent your team from being proactive in finding alternative ways to do their work. You can further augment this by giving your team someone to contact in the event they cannot access the tools they need throughout the workday.

SCW can help your team by providing them with a trusted IT resource for any questions or concerns they have about technology during the workday. Furthermore, we can also keep your technology in proper working order so that your staff naturally experience fewer issues while going about their day-to-day tasks. This gives your team the confidence that their technology will not create unexpected troubles for them and can help encourage them to appropriately handle issues when they do arise.

Let SCW be your business’ trusted IT resource! To get started, give us a call at (509) 534-1530.