Whether a result of necessity, convenience, or a neat amalgamation of both, businesses worldwide have embraced the benefits and limitations of a remote workforce.
This undoubtedly brings a unique set of challenges and trials to the situation, not least of all being the concept of data protection.
Since many remote workers have to adopt a BYOD policy, questions about ethical company practices and compliance managers need to be asked of business owners everywhere.
If you need to ensure your own compliance management strategy is up to scratch, here are some points worth checking out.
Looking After Customers
If employees need to access the company network using their private devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, they must stay safe online and handle sensitive information with care.
This can help look after your customers and their data to the best of your ability, regardless of where in the world your employees happen to be working from.
If your employee’s device is a breaching point in your network through which cybercriminals can access your company information, the whole infrastructure is, in effect, compromised.
A way around this is to introduce a mobile device management solution, which an IT specialist should help you with.
Educate Your Employees
If one of your employees happens to fall for a phishing email and they give cybercriminals access to a device used to access your company network, there is every chance your company will land in serious trouble.
To avoid this and similar scenarios from occurring, educating your employees on the value of safe digital practices is a must.
You may want to check out this great guide on the importance of compliance management, as it may help you to fully understand what the topic means to a company.
Threats from the Inside
Sometimes, an employee’s actions may inadvertently lead to a data breach, even if they would never think of doing anything malicious generally.
However, genuinely malicious insider threats are a real issue, which can get tricky when managing a remote workforce.
In this regard, monitoring employee activity to a certain extent should be considered. This can be a hard line to walk, but one that does not necessarily have to be too intrusive.
By establishing transparency and effective communication channels, companies can ensure employees are made aware of the importance of monitoring and why it might be essential.
Limiting access to certain areas of your network and adopting a zero-trust security model might also be a great option to consider.
Avoiding Huge Fines
To make sure your company is protecting data means ensuring compliance with the law, locally and internationally.
The consequences of failing to do so can be dire; just take a look at the huge fines Amazon and Google have been hit with.
A fine of this nature could be utterly devastating for smaller companies, and the reputational damage might be impossible to recover from, so it is best to comply from the start.
