If you’re one of the millions who went from working regularly in an office to working primarily from home this year, it’s been a year with a lot of change and uncertainty. While a lot of people have focused on things like figuring out how to get a new home office set up or how to keep the kids out of the background of Zoom calls, one thing has gotten lost in all the disruption: data backups for work files.
The Challenges of WFH for IT Departments
In 2018, a global survey revealed that almost half of employers (44%) didn’t even allow working from home. For that significant chunk of the workforce, the IT department probably had a good handle on security of data within the office environment. However, that controlled environment is no longer an option, and today millions of workers are accessing data from millions of files in millions of different locations.
That’s a lot of opportunity for security mishaps, and that doesn’t even take into account the personal (unmanaged) devices people are now using to access data. Even for IT departments that have been working on remote data security strategies for a while, it’s a challenging time.
Revisit Your Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan
The best way to add more security to your data and devices is with a clear data recovery and security plan. If you had one before that centered around a specific work location, it’s time to dust it off and figure out how to adapt in the face of the current pandemic. It’s also time to account for the likely eventuality that a big chunk of the workforce will continue to work from home in the months and years to come—many experts predict the massive COVID-19 disruption is the beginning of a tectonic shift in where we work.
Update Your Data Storage Solutions
Along with the changes and updates you make to your disaster recovery plan, now is the time to update the methods you use to store information. A cloud-based data storage solution is a more flexible option for your most important corporate files and information because it can be accessed from anywhere you have an internet connection or cell phone signal. It’s also more secure than whatever your employees are using in their WFH setup (which is probably nothing). Finally, it offers an affordable way to automatically backup all your employees’ files from multiple locations throughout the day without them needing to remember to initiate the backup.
Get Started Today with Storage Whale
Prevent data disasters with cloud-based data backups through Storage Whale. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you figure out what the “new normal” is for your WFH employees.