Tag Archives: Telework

Events Go or No Go? Maybe Both?

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I recently had the pleasure of participating in a virtual panel discussion organized by Government Marketing University titled, "Fusing Government and Industry: Event Go or No Go." The webinar looked at the current reality of in-person event planning and attendance using research findings as well as anecdotal observations and experiences.

Market Connections conducted a survey of government event attendees in January to get a pulse on their appetite for attending face-to-face (F2F) events. The findings of this research echoed the responses we received to our most recent survey. People are slowly but surely reintroducing in-person events into their schedules and planning. The latest survey found 40% of respondents plan to attend at least one in-person event in 2022. This is a considerable jump from the 25% that reported attending a 2021 event. Continue reading →

Putting a Value on Trust — Introducing Zero Trust Security Approaches

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With so many high-profile hacks this year, it's easy to want to throw up your hands and say, "Is there nothing that can be trusted?!" Interestingly, that lament is what is driving the latest approach to cybersecurity -- zero trust. Zero trust is what it sounds like, a security approach centered on the belief that organizations should not automatically trust anything accessing their systems either inside or outside their perimeters. Instead, all people and devices must be verified before access is granted. To the untrained eye, this seems untenable. How, in this day and age, when we depend on digital information and connection to do most anything, can we use a process where we have to constantly verify identity and access permissions? Luckily, the practice of zero trust is more sophisticated than its premise.

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Putting Work into Defining the Government Workforce

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The last year has brought about incredible change in the federal workforce, and it shows no sign of stopping. With a new Director for the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) confirmed, the next several months will bring new energy and activity to formalizing and standardizing workplace policies, processes, and approaches for the "new normal" of a digital-first government.

The move to telework changed how many people view and even perform their jobs. Before the pandemic, telework was sporadically used throughout government and viewed pretty skeptically. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it's clear that government can continue to function without people in office buildings from 9am-5pm. As in-person work starts to come back around, the new shift will be in defining and managing a hybrid workforce.

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The Telework Genie is Free. Now What?

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In regards to remote working, the general consensus seems to be, "you can't put the genie back in the bottle."

A good portion of the government workforce has been working from home for the past year, and the world has continued turning. In fact, some agencies report productivity is up since teleworking became the norm. While people will return to the office, it will look different with many alternating office days with days they work from home. The past year has shown us that working arrangements do not necessarily need to be confined to an office. And, when we also remove the stress of students learning from home, caring for homebound elderly parents, and a pandemic in general, employees may realize a new level of balance and job satisfaction.

To support the continued success of remote work, agencies need to shore up the IT that was put in place to simply keep the trains running on time. Some technology was implemented quickly to meet the immediate need, and now is the time to take a hard look at all of those solutions to see if they will scale to meet the long-term reality of a dispersed workforce.

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Security in the “New Normal”

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With telework expected to stay long after the pandemic ebbs, government agencies are looking to shore up the remote work solutions they put in place to ensure on premise security measures extend to the dispersed workforce. Multi-cloud environments are the reality for almost every agency. The many applications needed for the diverse functions of an organization require multiple cloud solutions to provide the specific support needed.

A report from Meritalk, Multi-Cloud Defense: Redefining the Cyber Playbook, found that 83 percent of respondents are increasing multi-cloud adoption to support telework and mission needs related to COVID-19. However, 42 percent said their cyber strategies cannot keep up. One part of the challenge is creating a solution that can be applied to the wide variety of endpoint devices and meeting enterprise security requirements.

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