Keeping Your Remote Workforce Connected

There is no denying that in a few short years we’ve seen a substantial rise in mobility and connectivity. The constant workforce connectivity that was usually reserved for on-call doctors has now made its way to all of us. According to analyst firm IDC, there will be over 105 million mobile workers by 2020 – that’s ¾ of the U.S. workforce. The days of the 9-5 in-office work day are over. We no longer work late, we just work. Sure, in theory always being connected means that you could be expected to always work, but it also affords us the flexibility to work whenever and wherever we want.

In addition to flexibility, mobility is bringing benefits to businesses too – better customer service, increased productivity, lower facilities costs and so much more. But it’s not without it’s challenges.

A recent study from HDI of support center professionals found that nearly two-thirds of respondents reported an increase in ticket volume. 50% of those respondents said that the biggest contributing factor was the increase of new application systems including…you guessed it…mobile.

Mobile, cloud, collaboration tools – they are all combining to make our lives easier, but are giving our IT helpdesks a major headache. A study of IT professionals by IDG research found similar results. The number one challenge they cited with the mobile workforce was supporting new technology and devices. That added with managing the expectations of users who want this new technology to be available to them 24×7 and companies are adding significant support costs to their bottom line. That same study found that high end user satisfaction was a support desks #1 goal followed closely by decrease operational and security risk. This was really interesting to me as in many cases the first and second goals directly compete. As businesses open their networks up beyond the office walls, there is obviously much more risk. Having these competing goals is making many IT professionals feeling overwhelmed.

IT folks, I certainly feel your pain. How do you keep customers connected, productive and happy, conquer the BYOD phenomenon, and secure your organization from risk? Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet on this one. The answer is…it depends. It depends on your business and how much risk it’s willing to take on. It depends on your workforce – are they tech savvy or do they generally need more hand holding?

No matter where your organization stands – the real answer is to fight fire with fire. Just as innovations in mobile and collaboration technology is making life easier for workers, innovation in support tools is making it easier for IT to help meet the expectations of the user. Remote IT support services like our own LogMeIn Rescue allow support teams to help employees with any issue, no matter where in the world they are working.