Remote Work Organizational Issues

Impact of remote work on employers and employees

2020

Unexpectedly acute issues of transferring employees to remote work in the spring of 2020 caught many companies by surprise. The coronavirus pandemic COVID-19 left no time for swinging and forced in an accelerated mode to take measures to maintain the working regime.

Remote work does not suit everyone

According to a survey conducted by experts from the Работа.ру portal in mid-April, the number of Russians who work in companies that have completely switched to remote operation since the end of March has grown almost fivefold.

If on March 20, only 3% of Russians announced the complete transition of companies to remote work due to the coronavirus epidemic, then by April 14 there were already 14% of such answers. Another 15% of respondents replied that only some departments were transferred to remote work in their companies, and 5% of respondents announced management recommendations for moving to work from home.

Around the same time, Ipsos found out that only 22% of Russians are satisfied with remote work on self-insulation. Analysts interviewed about 1 thousand residents of millennial cities Russia aged 18-65 years, and also analyzed social media information.

One in three respondents (34.5%) admitted that it is difficult for him to concentrate at home, and the efficiency of his work is declining. Almost the same number answered that it was difficult for them to distinguish between personal life and work (33.8%). Other reasons for dissatisfaction include a poorly equipped workplace, for example, a small laptop screen (32.9% of respondents named this reason). Some find it difficult to work when children and family are nearby (32.1%) or there is not enough personal communication with colleagues and clients (30.3%). Also, many are unhappy that at remote work they are recovering and gaining excess weight - 26.8% of respondents admitted this.

Among the advantages of remote work, most Russians called saving time on the road (76%) and saving money, since there is no spending on travel, coffee and food in the office (84%). Another part of respondents noted that they like flexible working hours (59%), the opportunity to wake up later (55%), as well as the fact that they have more time to do ordinary household chores (43%).

Experts note that 89% people waste time at work, and 10% have useless spending more than 3 hours a day. And the main share of losses is colleagues, that is, we have learned well to imitate boiling activities in the office. In remote mode, this is much more difficult to do and quickly enough it becomes clear which roles practically do not affect the productivity of the direction, which can be redundant. In remote mode, we are forced to evaluate the result in fact, since we do not have the opportunity to control who spends how much time watching social networks and communicating with colleagues. Although, working from home, unproductive communication with colleagues can be easily replaced by other household stimuli, "says Alexey Gottsdanker, business architect, member of the ICL Services remote work project working group.

Key Migration Issues

When switching to "remote" the main priority for all employers was the speed at which it was necessary to ensure the work of employees from home. Therefore, many companies opened up access to their internal resources, allowed employees to take office computers home, urgently purchased laptops and remote work tools.

Communication with customers during the mass transition to home-office showed that only a small percentage of large organizations have ready-made solutions for the transition to full-fledged work in remote mode. For most employees of Russian companies, there was no need for remote work until now, and now employers have had to urgently rebuild the IT infrastructure, "said Elena Tipisova, head of Softthe hardware solutions department.

However, as Dmitry Galkin, head of VDI at Jet Infosystems, notes, a massive transfer of employees to remote work, if the infrastructure is not ready for this, may take weeks, or even months, while additional server equipment will be needed.

In this regard, companies have to implement remote work in basic scenarios, from where a second problem automatically arises - ensuring secure remote work. But when the fundamental opportunity to continue working is at stake, something has to be neglected, "he said.

According to Alexey Tsember, sales director of BIA Technologies, the first and most important thing that determines the success of a business in a crisis is its level of digital maturity. In those companies where the development of information technologies was a strategic growth point, they coped quickly, and all the difficulties were reduced exclusively to the speed of adaptation of employees. But there are units of such companies, he emphasizes.

For most, digital transformation remained a dropped phrase that was not related to real business. We have been observing the results for a month. Companies cannot cope with the loads on digital communication channels, cannot provide employee equipment, comply with the security of data with which employees work from home from their own computers, fuss, lose time and ultimately money, "says Tsember.

The main difficulty, in his opinion, is due to the lack of a holistic digital environment within the organization with a configured access delimitation and a complete set of IT services.

When everything is set up and working in the company, it does not matter where the employee is. Processes can be quickly reconfigured, documents signed digitally, load optimized "on the fly." The current crisis has put the issues of informatization at the forefront, and when it ends, the demand for IT products will remain at a high level, "said an expert at BIA Technologies.

Organizations in which business processes are closely related to the use of desktop applications or office equipment were most difficult, believes Ilya Zaichikov, Product owner SADTEZIS Document and Task Management System. You can solve this problem by moving your work to a web application available from any device.

Other common difficulties: lack of communication between employees, opacity of business processes, inability to see a complete picture of the situation, reduced productivity due to the home environment and an alarming atmosphere.

As for the latter, according to the results of the SAP survey, which were published on April 23, 2020, middle managers were the most alarming category. 54% of respondents in this position stated a state of uncertainty and a high level of experiences.

At the same time, the most exposed to stress - 67% of respondents - feel microbusiness employees and self-employed. Regarding functional responsibilities, employees of sales departments (62%), personnel specialists (50%) and employees from the field of customer service and marketing (47% each) experience uncertainty.

Respondents called the most serious obstacles to performing work at home the equipping of the workplace (25%) and the presence of loved ones in a confined space (17%). At the same time, most of all, employees lack monitors and video communication equipment.

According to Artem Goncharenko, commercial director of Cloud4Y, many businesses are concerned about the decline in work quality: from an unequipped workspace, poor-quality communication and distractions, to the absence of employees during working hours.

Our complete cloud-based remote access solution is as close to the real office environment as possible. Remote work of employees is controlled by a special software that signals possible violations of labor discipline. File and document collaboration, IP telephony, video conferencing, etc. You can test this service within 1 month. Of course, for free, "he said.

Alexander Shikinov, sales director of Mango Telecom, said that the most frequent request in his company was related to connecting staff from home, quickly bringing at least sellers and customer service specialists to the line.

The companies were faced with the fact that the managers' work phones continued to call, but only they called on tables in empty offices. Naturally, users of cloud solutions did not have such a problem. You just need to enter a login and password so that these calls begin to take a personal smartphone or home computer, "he explained.

Andrei Kosenko, Senior Consultant for VMware Business Strategy, believes that from the company's point of view, the main difficulty of remote work is to maintain a balance between providing employees with digital experience (convenient access to all necessary services) and the cost of organizing remote access for employees.

The problem with remote employees is inconvenient access to enterprise applications and information. This reduces productivity and often encourages them to use third-party services (shadow IT). There is another aspect - the internal readiness of employees to digitize traditional processes, for example, document management, payments, document approval. Here, a lot of responsibility falls on the shoulders of the IT department - it is important to find tools that employees will be comfortable using, but that they comply with the company's security policies, "said Andrei Kosenko.

According to Maxim Zakharenko, CEO of Cloud Computing, during an emergency transition to a remote location, companies experience two types of difficulties. Management difficulties are related to the management culture in the company and the loss of control over the actions of employees. This is the main problem, but life will make her overcome. The second problem is technological how to ensure the operability of the IT infrastructure and access to it by employees.

Valentin Gubarev, Director of the Computing Systems Department of Krok, notes that the increase in companies' presence in the digital environment, in particular, the launch of online delivery of goods, the transfer of services to a remote format, leads to a strong increase in the load on computing systems.

And this is a rather serious problem that can negate all attempts to make the business more digital. The first and main thing to do in this case is to fill the lack of resources with computing power, quickly purchase or take from the cloud. This is especially true if the load is temporary, says the Krok expert.

Cloud Computing recommends transferring key resources to a reliable cloud, which can be done in a day, including with the help of cloud integrators, adds Maxim Zakharenko.

Valentin Gubarev gave an example from the Krok experience. In particular, the company had customers who gave all the free capacity to the VDI organization and used the cloud to increase resources on business-critical services, in particular e-com. The company recently implemented another project for the Higher School of Economics. Thanks to cloud power, the university in just a week created virtual doubles of each audience, in which teachers and students are now engaged. Thanks to this decision, it was possible to transfer all HSE lectures online, without losing the effectiveness of the educational process.

Of course, not all companies were ready for the transition to remote work, most often difficulties arose in large organizations not belonging to the IT cluster, adds Andrei Ivanov, CIO "Krok." According to him, the first thing that complicates the speed and quality of transferring employees to remote mode is the lack of a material and technical base: from a home workplace to difficulties with access to company resources, security and communication between employees. Secondly, for a huge number of people, remote work has become a new experience in their professional activities. Prior to this, she was limited to several days during business trips or sick leave, but few employees were morally prepared to work from home for several months.

On our part, we were preparing for the worst version of the development of events, and therefore the main work on transferring to the remote site began to be carried out before the introduction of the self-isolation mode: this is both building the capabilities of the IT infrastructure and training employees to work in the new conditions. The coordinated tandem of the IT department, support services, HR and other divisions of the company made it possible to successfully transfer Krok to remote work in just a couple of days, "he said.

Meanwhile, the results of a study by SearchInform, presented on April 22, 2020, showed that less than half of the companies that switched to the remote format of work control the actions of employees through specialized programs. Only 15% of respondents admitted to using software to evaluate discipline, but not information security. As a result, a third of organizations cannot assess how the number of IB incidents changes due to an emergency transition to remote operation.

The results of the questionnaire showed that companies are hard to transfer business processes to a remote format. 44% of respondents believe that serious efforts are required, a third said that transferring employees to remote control is expensive. [1]Подробнее #.D0.9C.D0.B5.D0.BD.D1.8C.D1.88.D0.B5_.D0.BF.D0.BE.D0.BB.D0.BE.D0.B2.D0.B8.D0.BD.D1.8B_.D0.BA.D0.BE.D0.BC.D0.BF.D0.B0.D0.BD.D0.B8.D0.B9_.D0.BA.D0.BE.D0.BD.D1.82.D1.80.D0.BE.D0.BB.D0.B8.D1.80.D1.83.D1.8E.D1.82_.D0.B4.D0.B5.D0.B9.D1.81.D1.82.D0.B2.D0.B8.D1.8F_.D1.81.D0.BE.D1.82.D1.80.D1.83.D0.B4.D0.BD.D0.B8.D0.BA.D0.BE.D0.B2_.D0.BD.D0.B0_.C2.AB.D1.83.D0.B4.D0.B0.D0.BB.D1.91.D0.BD.D0.BA.D0.B5.C2.BB_.D1.81_.D0.BF.D0.BE.D0.BC.D0.BE.D1.89.D1.8C.D1.8E_.D1.81.D0.BF.D0.B5.D1.86.D0.BF.D1.80.D0.BE.D0.B3.D1.80.D0.B0.D0.BC.D0.BC здесь.

How "remote" will change the usual work of companies

According to a Gartner survey, the results of which were published in early April 2020, 74% of companies plan to permanently leave part of the employees transferred to such work due to the coronavirus pandemic at the remote site. It follows from the survey that 27% of companies plan to keep 5% of the state transferred to it on the "remote," 25% of companies - 10% of the state, 17% of companies - 20% of the state. In 4% of the organizations surveyed, they said that half of the employees who were forcibly transferred to this format will continue to work in a remote format, and another 2% plan to leave more than half of the transferred employees in the new mode at the end of the pandemic.

How many employees have been transferred to remote work in connection with COVID-19, will you permanently leave in remote work at the end of the pandemic?

This data is an example of the fact that the crisis caused by coronavirus will have long-lasting consequences in terms of how to conduct business, "said an analyst at Gartner. - Now financial directors are already in a difficult situation - they are required to significantly reduce costs. And they see this opportunity perfectly well in transferring employees to a remote format.

As noted in Gartner, managers see remote work as a way to do with small blood and at the same time ensure the minimum negative impact of changes on the operational activities of^[1]

Experts interviewed by TAdviser also do not yet expect mass transfers of employees to remote work. The commercial director of CommuniGate Systems Russia, Vladimir Burgov, believes that if by mid-summer it turns out that remote work may not continue, then everyone will return to the office. And about the "remote woman," those who have not previously practiced it, will forget. If the pandemic continues, then companies that appreciate the benefits of remote work will become noticeably more, he is sure.

At the same time, many experts notice the positive effects caused by "coronavirus removal." During the pandemic, many companies that were already engaged in digital transformation greatly accelerated this process. They had no other choice because automation was the only option to go remote.

After quarantine, most organizations will return to their usual work in the office, there will be no mass transitions to the "remote" on an ongoing basis. However, the pandemic has shown how important the digitalization of key business processes and the ability to quickly rebuild work are. Many realized that events of this level rarely occur, but their consequences are too global to neglect the development of technology to support business. In addition, the transition to remote work has helped many organizations fully understand the benefits of SED THESIS and other technologies. This means that the area of ​ ​ business processes that are automated with their help will only grow, "says Ilya Zaichikov, Product owner SED THESIS Document and Task Management System.

The pandemic will end, and remote work will remain with us forever, I am sure Alexey Tsember, sales director of BIA Technologies. According to him, there were already several turns of this trend, but each time it faded and did not become a real trend. Companies could not provide a single digital environment without linking to the employee's location. There was not enough tools to set and control tasks. Even software developers who have long mastered hiring in the regions tried to open a representative office and still collect employees in the office.

We all found ourselves in an uncontested reality. Pumping in the field of remote work has become a collective challenge. In these couple of months, all barriers will be removed, those who were afraid or doubted the effectiveness will learn. Employers will launch analytical models and calculate how much you can save on administrative costs by reducing office space. We are already building a mathematical optimization model for one of the customers by reducing office space, transferring some employees to a remote location according to flexible schedule and attracting new employees in the regions to a full remote location. Huge savings. And, very importantly, working for a large company will cease to be the privilege of residents of cities of millions of people. We expect serious competition with professionals from the regions and active work in distributed teams, "says Alexei Tsember.

According to forecasts, we will have to return to social distancing from time to time until 2022 - this will change the attitude to the organization of work, said Andrei Kosenko, senior consultant on VMware business strategy. Perhaps departments that successfully cope with tasks remotely will remain at home. Or the practice of home office will become widespread several times a week, he adds.

I am sure that after the pandemic, business will continue to develop the systems that it now uses for remote work. Now, after two months, it has become clear that work from home is not as scary as it seemed before - and it suits many even more than an office. In addition, we will have a traumatic experience of the first weeks, when everyone had to rebuild business processes, adapt them to new realities. Companies will want to insure themselves in the event of new crises. And the task of IT organizations is not only to respond to such crisis situations, but also to rethink their strategy of providing a digital workplace and delivering applications to users of the company in the long term, "said a representative of VMware.

The Jet Infosystems company notices a change in attitude towards VDI technology. Before the massive migration of companies to remote locations, only a few of them saw VDI as an opportunity that would outweigh the cost of implementation. Desktop virtualization was more of a big business interest. However, now enterprises of a smaller scale have turned to it.

The transition to remote work has become an interesting experience. He showed that it is possible to organize the work of employees without loss in its capacity, without collecting people in the walls of offices. At least some employees, which means you can save on rented space. And if employees work remotely, then they can be from regions where the level of salaries is lower. When such additional introductory ones appear in the development of feasibility studies, the VDI economy is already developing in a completely different way, "said Dmitry Galkin, head of VDI at Infosystems Jet.

Maxim Zakharenko, CEO of Cloud Computing, believes that immediately after quarantine, everyone will miss their home office, but doubts about its need, as well as the need for many processes (for example, related to paper paperwork) and employees will increase. All this, in his opinion, can lead to a significant redistribution of the labor market and a sharp increase in demand for flexible cloud services to automate the company's work. At the same time, according to him, it's time to think about repurposing in the residential sector.

Coronavirus gave the opportunity to conduct the largest experiment regarding the labor market, said Artem Goncharenko, commercial director of Cloud4Y. In his opinion, this is a kind of test for flexibility and financial sustainability.

Of course, a certain part of companies and employees will return to the usual pattern of work in offices. But, the attitude towards the model of remote work and services, including cloud ones, to organize remote collaboration will definitely change. "Digitalize or die" - unfortunately, and maybe fortunately, this is the reality in which we live, he adds.

Kroc notes that during the quarantine, many employees have developed a remote work skill that will later be useful to employers.

I already see that some of the teams have not just not lost in efficiency, but even increased it. People do not need to go to work, spend an hour and a half on this. The most unpleasant thing is that after a tedious journey, employees already come to the office broken. Therefore, now many teams note an increase in efficiency. Of course, the "remote" cannot continue indefinitely - people want live communication. Therefore, I think that after quarantine we will all return to the offices, but I am not sure that for all 5 days, "says Valentin Gubarev, director of the computing systems department of Krok.

The representative of "Croke" notices at least two positive points.

I am convinced that there are entire groups of employees who need to be transferred to the "remote" - set up VDI for them, monitor working hours and translate. We provide such a service, now we have looked at it from a new side, the culture has begun to change, and many colleagues realized that it is quite possible to work effectively from the home office, "notes Gubarev.

The second even more important benefit is infinite geography for distributed teams.

When you have all the infrastructure for remote work, people have a skill, and synchronization goes through the VKS and in chat rooms, you can painlessly attract the right specialists from other regions and even countries. And at the same time you will be sure that they will instantly join the working environment and will be effective, "said Valentin Gubarev.

According to Vyacheslav Dancorov, director of operational marketing at Krok, for many businesses, remote work will become the new norm.

{{Quote 'That is why in the framework of the Kroc Anti-Crisis Portfolio of Solutions announced at the end of April for both recovering and growing businesses, we provided for a separate group of solutions under the marker "We leave some employees at the remote site." Analytical studies show that the current situation will equally affect companies and employees. And the task of everyone who intends to save or only start their business after the coronavirus pandemic is to start preparing for this now, "Dancorov believes. }}

Experts around the world agree unanimously:

1. The current situation has shown that many types of businesses can work remotely and there are all the tools for this.

2. Yes, initially you will have to invest in infrastructure solutions for such work, but in the future they will be compensated by reducing the costs of maintaining the office.

3. Many processes will be automated if this has not already happened, which will reduce business costs.

4. Many employees will begin to understand how much "extra" time they spent on logistics and themselves will prefer not to return to offices.

And on the front line - as always, IT units whose task is to organize an effective and safe space for such work, the Krok expert believes.

Alexey Gottsdanker, business architect, member of the working group of the ICL Services remote work project, believes that the world will cope with the pandemic quite quickly, but the crises caused by this, the economic consequences, will be a real challenge for many industries.

The business landscape is changing right now and the advantage will not be for large companies that could provide cost reduction at the expense of scale, but for small dynamic teams that flexibly and dynamically adapt to changing business conditions. For the new post-crisis business format, the ability to work in distributed teams will be one of the key ones, he says.

Recommendations on organizational issues of remote work of employees

2021: Linksys Introduces Enterprise Solution to Support Remote and Hybrid Operations

On September 28, 2021, Fortinet, together with Linksys, announced a joint solution that allows organizations to maintain and protect networks for work from home. Linksys HomeWRK for Business Secured by Fortinet is an enterprise solution that provides secure network connectivity for corporate and personal needs in one module optimized for business applications and collaboration tools, including Zoom. More details here.

2020

TADetali: How to create an effective workspace for a remote employee in two days

During the quarantine period, many employees went to work from home. Not everyone managed to work with the previous productivity. One of the reasons is the use of non-flexible tools. Companies that use a combination of proven hardware and software solutions were best prepared for removal, thanks to which one system administrator without going home could configure corporate equipment used by home employees. More details here.

1C announced the launch of 1C:Link. Belarus "for remote operation

On August 31, 2020, 1C announced the launch of the 1C:Link remote service in Belarus. Belarus. " The service allows users of 1C application solutions to organize Internet access to their programs installed in their office or at home. More details here.

CorpSoft24 presented REWTAS to verify employee employment at the "remote"

On July 16, 2020, it became known that the company CorpSoft24 developed the REWTAS (Remote Employee Working Time Accounting System) program for monitoring and recording employees' working hours at the remote site. The development process took specialists a little more than 3 months. More details here.

Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia opened access to a list of technical solutions for organizing the remote work process

The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation presents a showcase of technical solutions for organizing the remote work process. This was announced by the Ministry on June 19, 2020. More details here.

Getmobit introduced an online service that allows you to quickly connect a remote workplace

On June 17, 2020, Getmobit introduced the Global Discovery Service, a product that allows you to connect a remote workstation based on a GM-Box dock from a "box" in 15 minutes. More details here.

Development of Artezio will increase discipline at the "remote"

Artezio (part of the LANIT group) has developed an ART-Ping software solution that will help managers control their employees working remotely. Managers will know if the employee is in the workplace (at the computer), how focused they are on tasks and whether they need to pay attention to their performance. This was announced on May 28, 2020 by LANIT. More details here.

Launched a registry that collects all digital solutions for remote operations

As part of the joint activities of the CCI of the Russian Federation and the Fund for the Development of the Digital Economy, the project "Register of Digital Companies for Business" has been launched, which is designed to accumulate all digital solutions that allow you to organize remote business work. This was announced on May 27, 2020 by the CCI of the Russian Federation. More details here.

On behalf of Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshenko, recommendations were created for officials on the transition to the "remote"

At the end of April 2020, the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation (RANEPA) sent recommendations to Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko and Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications Maksut Shadaev on organizing the work of civil servants of federal executive bodies in remote access mode. Recommendations in PDF format can be downloaded here, a web version is also available. More details here.

Ministry of Industry and Trade has selected five Naumen solutions to organize remote work of enterprises

On April 28, 2020, the company Naumen announced that Ministry of Industry and Trade RUSSIAN FEDERATION it had included five NAUMEN software products in the showcase of technical solutions for organizing the remote work process. More. here

How to quickly organize remote work: tips from 1C

Solution "1C: Fresh" or "1C: Enterprise via the Internet" - cloud service 1C. It provides access through 1C: Enterprise applications within the SaaS model. With 1C: Fresh, you can keep accounting and tax records, submit reports, control your business, and even manage it online. More details here.

Accenture Brings Business Transition Solution to Home Office

On April 15, 2020 the Accenture company reported about development algoritmaelastic Digital Workplace ("A flexible digital working environment"). The solution puts customers' business in production optimization mode while protecting employees. More details here.

Taxcom presented its selection of services for effective online business management

On April 14, 2020, Taxcom presented its selection of services for effective online business management.

According to the company, recently more companies are moving to remote work. If earlier employees at a remote location were the prerogative of large organizations, then in April 2020, the current situation in the country and the world forces small and medium-sized businesses to move to home offices.

What tools will allow you to work efficiently from home if the company does not have a single IT infrastructure, and it is necessary to maintain an intensive pace of teamwork?

To solve operational problems in a small team, a general chat in your favorite messenger and online conferences in free Zoom or Skype programs is enough. If the company has many disparate employees who need separate channels to communicate for each activity, Taxcom advises you to pay attention to the Slack service and its advanced messaging functions.

If the company has never used planning programs before, then in April 2020 it is time to learn how to set tasks and monitor their implementation. Wrike, Jira, Asana, Trello, PlanFix - you can choose what is more convenient. The era of paper reports and permanent oral instructions has ended.

To remotely control points of sale, companies can use the products of fiscal data operators or cash register manufacturers. Revenue analysis, sales statistics and monitoring of cash registers, customizable reports and online service management - all this, for example, can be found in the mobile and web services of the fiscal data operator Taxcom and the cloud cash desk for Internet trading.

Online repositories on remote servers help you share voluminous files and support document collaboration. If the company does not have its own server, you can use cloud storage from Google, Yandex or Dropbox.

The CUBE cloud program is so easy to use that it will help you quickly and easily bill and prepare closing documents even to a person far from accounting. This option is suitable for companies and individual entrepreneurs who use the services of an accountant on. outsource When the documents are in order, it is easier for an accountant to form a report and send it to. state agencies This can be done, for example, using the Online electronic reporting service -Sprinter he will send the report through secure channels communications from anywhere in the world.

Exchanging electronic documents with counterparties is not as difficult as it seems. You just need to register as an EDO user, choose an operator, tariff and program for exchange. Taxcom recommends Taksky-Feiler - this is a simple online office. The service itself is free, has a mobile version, and only sent documents are taken into account in the charging. Electronic document management will simplify the coordination and signing of documents, as well as eliminate expenses on postal or courier delivery of paper originals.

For applications to government agencies in electronic form, participation in some types of tenders, filing complaints, managing company data and many other functions, the entrepreneur needs to register with the Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA) using the State Services portal. To do this, you will need an electronic signature, such as "Electronic Services" from the Taxcom Certification Center. You can work with it not only in Gosulugi, but also on the portals of regional and municipal authorities.

With remote work, the team of employees will need a single digital space for joint actions. The Confluence system or Google services will come to the rescue: documents, tables, presentations, calendar.

BIA Technologies developed BIA: Quarantine

On April 13, 2020, BIA Technologies announced the formation of the BIA: Quarantine service package, which includes consulting, assistance in preparing methodologies and instructions, developing and connecting digital services, assessing the effectiveness of remote work and a number of digital services. More details here.

Falcongaze: 6 issues that need to be resolved when moving employees to the "remote"

In connection with the coronavirus pandemic, the issue of transferring employees to the "remote" faced many companies, not only IT. Some have no experience of such cooperation, and they do not know what to envisage. Falcongaze identified 6 issues that need to be resolved in order to quickly and painlessly give employees the opportunity to work from home, and on March 31, 2020 shared this information with TAdviser.

1. Who can and should be translated

There are many tools that allow you to work from home, but still not all work can be done outside the equipped workplace.

Who can be translated. If an employee does work at a computer, the results of his work can be presented digitally - he does not have to sit in the office. Such employees include journalists, designers, copywriters, video installers. Also, everyone who deals with SEO, SMM, administers sites, can also do this from home.

Many companies outsource accounting and legal support. It is difficult to say here that all accountants can be transferred to a remote location - companies have different processes. But if you wish, there is such an opportunity.

Who can't be translated. It will not be possible to translate those who meet with customers who need to attend meetings in person. It will also not work from home for those who need special tools, equipment or anything that is only at work. For example, the laboratory assistant will not take the job home.

If the reason for the transfer was concern for the health of employees, then first of all you should pay attention to those who have elderly people and children at home. Also on those who have health problems. It is advisable to transfer those who are far away and with transplants need to go to work.

2. Legal registration

In general, the management of any company is clear who can and cannot be transferred. But in any case, according to Article 72 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, it is impossible to transfer an employee to remote work, that is, to change the terms of the contract, without his written consent.

Almost all in this case use this algorithm:

• The employee writes a statement about the desire to temporarily switch to a remote form of work. It is it that is the basis for changing the terms of the contract.
• The head of the enterprise, on the basis of applications, issues an appropriate order in which he establishes the period of removal, gives a list of employees, and reflects organizational aspects.
• Employees and employers sign an additional agreement to the employment contract in connection with changing working conditions.

Safety training should be provided. Also, if employees receive working equipment at home, this needs to be fixed.

3. Remote Tools

In order to work remotely, you need not so much: a computer and, possibly, headphones or a headset. Of course, we need the Internet.

You may need the following from the software. Many companies use secure virtual networks - VPN - for operational purposes. Accordingly, the employee will need a program to connect to the VPN and may need to set up a remote desktop connection.

Those who cannot do this on their own will need a program like TeamViewer. Using it, the administrator can remotely install all the necessary on the computer and configure the connection.

It is also worth making sure in advance that on the home computer, or on the office, which the employee takes, there is everything necessary for him. Photoshop and Illustrator for designer, Word for journalist, 1C for accountant, etc.

4. Information security

The main tools that ensure the information security of companies are anti-virus programs and DLP systems. Everyone knows about the former, and DLP is a program that tracks the movement of information in enterprise networks. For example, they can see that a confidential file is stored on the computer, which should not be there, or that an employee in the messenger is texting with a competitor. Basically, these systems are used within the office, but nothing prevents them from being used to control remote employees. There are two options for how to do this.

The first is when an employee takes their work computer home, and the DLP system agent is already installed on it. The agent over the Internet connects to the central server and performs its work.

The second is when an employee connects to the remote desktop of a computer protected by the DLP system. Then all operations with information take place on it, and the employee uses his personal computer only as an access terminal.

Do not force employees to install the system on personal computers. In this case, questions arise from the law on the protection of personal data.

5. Working time monitoring

There are many different tools for remote work. These are mainly project management systems, BPM systems, sometimes they are called CRM systems by habit. The selection of a specific tool depends on the specifics of the company. Almost always there is already a set of programs that everyone in the organization is used to and that help coordinate work, including with remote interaction.

The company also noted the potential of the DLP system (using the example of FalconGaze SecureTower) in solving this problem. So, by analyzing the processes running on a computer, it can compile detailed reports on the use of this computer. Using it, you can find out which programs were launched, how long the computer stood idle, what resources were visited from it, with whom the employee contacted, and so on. Knowing the specifics of the work and tasks of a particular employee, you can draw conclusions.

6. Communication and Negotiation

Well, one of the main tasks is to create conditions for effective communication. There are also many means for this.

Messengers, as well as chat rooms of corporate portals like Bitrix, are used for communication. You can use IP telephony or Skype services for calls. For collaboration, you can use Google documents and tables, or similar services. Given the high speeds of the modern Internet, there are no problems in sharing very large files.

The transition of employees to a remote location is not as terrible an event as it may seem to those who did not encounter it. Many technologies are designed to make this form of employment not only possible, but also convenient and effective. Unfortunately, many were forced to turn to this issue by difficult current circumstances. But in the future, it is likely that many companies that have encountered this as necessary will continue to collaborate with some employees remotely for reasons of efficiency and process optimization.

Softline experts: Russian business was not technically ready for remote work

On March 27, 2020, Softline announced that the demand for solutions and services for organizing remote work over the past two weeks has tripled. The most popular were software and equipment for organizing remote workplaces, leasing computing capacity and ensuring the security of remote connections.

Communication with customers during the mass transition to home-office showed that only a small percentage of large organizations have ready-made solutions for the transition to full-fledged work in remote mode. For most employees of Russian companies, there was no need for remote work until now, and now employers have had to urgently rebuild the IT infrastructure, "says Elena Tipisova, head of Softline hardware solutions department.

In the first place among the services relevant for Softline customers, the operational deployment of remote desktops. The most popular technologies were technologies VDI ("Virtual Desktop Infrastructure," virtual desktop infrastructure), remote access technologies to user desktops and business applications. In the case of requests from state organizations and companies with state participation, requirements for certification FSTEC and presence in the components of Unified Register of Russian Software solutions are added.

Demand for secure remote access solutions has increased significantly. Solutions are popular for centralized business application management, security of mobile applications and devices, providing access to and storage of data in the cloud with the ability to monitor and audit, as well as monitor connections with end-to-end visibility of the system and user actions.

In the context of a massive transition to home-office, the load on IBs increases markedly. Therefore, we note the increased interest of customers in IB services, including outsourcing of DLP (Data Leak Prevention - technologies for preventing confidential information leaks) and cloud SOUND( Security Operations Center - an incident monitoring and response center), "says Vladimir Lavrov, head of Softline information security department.

For many companies that already had an IT infrastructure for remote work, the expansion of the workstation fleet has become relevant. Most customers consider the transition to remote work as a temporary measure, so they apply to Softline for a rental of equipment according to the DaaS model ("Desktop as a Service" or "workplace as a service"). The equipment is provided by the service provider according to the subscription model for a period of one year, payment is made monthly. After the end of the lease period, the client can return to the usual format of work or buy the equipment at a residual cost.

With the transition to a remote format, the load on the corporate network increases: if in the office most employees use only a computer to connect to business applications, then when working from home, the number of devices used can be increased to three (laptop, tablet, phone).

With a lack of computing power, cloud technologies are becoming more relevant. According to our experts, in March, the number of requests for the deployment of enterprise services in the cloud tripled compared to February. At the same time, the services of large foreign providers and their own Softline cloud are equally popular. In particular, there is growing demand for a ready-made cloud service "Virtual Office," which includes a set of necessary office programs and modern cloud servers, "says Yuri Novikov, head of the Softline cloud technology development department. While business prefers to create a hybrid infrastructure, transferring only part of enterprise applications to the cloud.

Softline experts also predict a rapid increase in demand for unified communications tools for the secure exchange of instant messages and confidential information (web and video conferencing tools, corporate instant messengers), platforms for distance learning and interaction with external counterparties, virtual assistants using AI and machine learning, as well as collaboration tools - virtual offices, office applications, intranet portals, document exchange repositories, tools for managing processes and tasks. Since the current situation is temporary, it is most relevant for customers, especially in the SMB segment, to purchase IT solutions using the subscription model (Software as a Service, SaaS). In this case, the customer can use the solution for as long as the circumstances require, without overpaying for the purchase of expensive licenses.

Currently, fundamental changes are taking place in all areas: public administration, professional activities and in the daily life of citizens. If until now it was difficult for many companies to decide on the introduction of certain technologies, then in today's situation, the most flexible companies that quickly respond to changes will be able to continue full-fledged work and remain in the market. Without corporate mobility solutions, it is impossible to remain competitive in most areas. Given the fact that many companies have to urgently change their approach to work and rebuild their IT infrastructure, I would like to warn them against rash steps and give several recommendations to minimize possible risks. First of all, only products proven in terms of convenience, reliability and safety should be considered. Before making a final decision, it makes sense to use the possibility of free test access to products. Pay attention to additional useful options (self-service portal, free space in cloud storage and others) - many modern solutions have them. It is worth trusting the selection and implementation of products to professional companies that have been on the market for at least several years and have confirmed expertise. And finally, do not forget to conclude a service level agreement (SLA) with providers, "summarizes Alexander Rozhkov, sales director of Softline Services Management.

SAP CIS launches hotline to support its ecosystem in coronavirus conditions

On March 26, 2020, SAP CIS launched a hotline to help customers and partners. The new communication channel will help to quickly solve emerging issues and problems related to the support of client systems in a difficult situation and restrictions caused by the spread of coronavirus. A special mailbox has been created for customer and partner cases. More details here.

Skolkovo resident analyzed the effectiveness of remote work

On March 26, 2020, Stakhanovets, a resident of information technology Skolkovo the Foundation Cluster, presented the results of a study in which it studied the involvement of office employees and those who work at the remote site in work processes.

The data were collected using the Stakhanovets complex, a system for monitoring actions on working computers. The sample included more than 300 people from 70 client companies. Some of them are allowed to partially work outside the office. In others, employees perform the same job responsibilities in the office and remotely.

According to the study, employees working from home, compared to colleagues in the office, on average, are better involved in the process - they take 23% more actions related to work duties. The leaders in productivity outside the office are programmers, designers and marketers: their engagement is 41% higher than that of office colleagues. In addition, "remote" employees work 1.4 days a month more, which is about three additional weeks a year.

80% of employees who work only in the office noted in the questionnaires that they would be more loyal if they could choose a location for work for at least one or two days a week. A third of them are thinking about changing their place of work and about moving to an employer who agrees to such a format of work. For 12% of employees, the ability to work outside the office is an important component of intangible motivation. 21% of office employees out of 80% agree to a salary reduction of 5-10%, but no more.

Transferring some employees to work from home is always a serious challenge for employers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most Russian companies are forced to answer this challenge if they do not want to leave the market. Stakhanovets offers an effective way to preserve teams, ensure control over how employees perform their job duties, and automate time recording for members of distributed teams. Providing managers and business owners with opportunities to monitor the work of employees, Stakhanovets contributes to maintaining the productivity of the teams of Russian enterprises in not the most favorable conditions, "said Nikita Rogozin, executive director of Stakhanovets.

The Stakhanovets study shows that the remote labor regime is a competitive advantage of the employer, which, in turn, benefits from saving on operating expenses and on the time that employees standard spend on delays due to transport problems.

Remote Work Regulation

The bill on "remote" was adopted by the State Duma in the first reading

On July 21, 2020, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill on the regulation of remote and remote work^[2]. As noted in the explanatory note to the bill, the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, due to objective circumstances, led to a large-scale spread of the regime of work outside stationary jobs, to the development of interaction between the parties to labor relations using information and communication technologies. Thus, contradictions were revealed between real processes in the field of labor during the pandemic and Russian labor law, in particular the forms of employment and working time established by it. The Covid-19 pandemic revealed problems of Russian labor law, consisting in its lack of flexibility and limited opportunities for the use of information and communication technologies in labor relations.

The amendments proposed by the bill solve the following main tasks:

1. Streamlining of the conceptual apparatus used in the field of regulation of the draft federal law by explaining three key concepts:

• remote (remote) operation;
• temporary remote (remote) work (a mode of work providing for the temporary performance of the labor function of an employee working on the basis of an employment contract, outside a stationary workplace under the control of the employer);
• combined remote (remote) operation (operation mode including operation at a stationary workplace and remote (remote) operation).

2. The maximum transition to electronic document management as part of the regulation of the labor of remote workers, reducing the volume of duplication of documents on paper. In particular, it is proposed to abandon the requirement to sign an employment contract on remote work using a qualified electronic digital signature (EDS). The cost and procedure for issuing such an EDS limits the distribution of remote work. At the same time, both the employer and the employee are always invited to give the opportunity and the right to choose so that they can use paper-based documents.

3. Exclusion from the section of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation on remote operation of a number of redundant and already outdated norms, as well as norms that are not the subject of labor legislation. Thus, the provision is excluded that in order to provide compulsory insurance for compulsory social insurance in the event of temporary disability and in connection with motherhood, the remote employee sends the employer the original documents provided for by Russian law by mail by registered letter with a notification. The norms related to the work book are excluded.

4. The requirement to specify the workplace as one of the conditions of the employment contract on remote work is excluded. The condition about the workplace has lost its significance due to the impossibility and lack of need for the employer to control where remote work is carried out geographically. The workplace of a remote worker can be located wherever it is possible to use the Internet.

5. Adjustment of the rules on the basis of termination of the contract with a remote employee. Part 1 of Article 312.5. The Labor Code of the Russian Federation provides that the termination of an employment contract on remote work at the initiative of the employer is carried out on the grounds provided for by the labor contract. Because of the wording of article 312.5. The Labor Code of the Russian Federation includes such grounds for dismissal of an employee as:

• the employer's lack of sufficient work;
• impracticability of further cooperation, industrial necessity determined by the employer;
• work is considered ineffective by the employer;
• changing the employer's development strategy;
• The CEO's decision to terminate the contract.

It is proposed to eliminate such discrimination for remote workers.

6. More progressive regulation of home-based work in terms of providing home-dwellers with the opportunity to use an employment contract on remote work.

7. Streamlining a number of norms according to the features of working and rest time of a remote employee. It is proposed to streamline issues related to the working time of remote workers, in particular, their right not to be in contact with the employer around the clock and not to answer letters and calls at certain time intervals. This problem is resolved through an indication of the interaction between the employer and the employee.

8. Introduction of temporary remote operation mode. The Labor Code of the Russian Federation does not provide the possibility of combining the performance of work both outside the employer's location and in a stationary workplace. The bill proposes to provide for the opportunity for an employee who works on the basis of an employment contract (which is not essentially an employment contract on remote work) to temporarily work outside a stationary workplace under the control of the employer. These proposals will have the necessary protective effect for an employee who works remotely for a long time and cannot formally refer to the presence of remote work.

9. The right of a remote employee and an employee in the mode of temporary remote work to be "offline." According to many studies, the number of working hours for an employee when switching to permanent or temporary remote employment increases, and this is due, among other things, to the need for constant contact with the employer and colleagues. It is proposed to establish a legislative rule providing for the procedure for interaction with an employee through electronic means of communication during his rest time, by analogy with the involvement in overtime work. The time of interaction of the employer with the employee during the rest period of the employee is paid to the employee in the manner prescribed for overtime work.

10. Establishment of the possibility of application of combined remote (remote) operation. An additional indication of this mode of work in a separate, new article of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation gives a legal opportunity for the employer and the employee to combine employment regimes within the framework of labor relations: at a stationary workplace and remote (remote) work.

A number of excerpts from the bill:

Remote (remote) work is the performance of an employment function defined by an employment contract outside the location of the employer, his branch, representative office, or other separate structural subdivision (including those located in another area), outside the fixed workplace, territory or facility, directly or indirectly under the control of the employer, provided that public information and telecommunication networks, including the Internet, are used to perform this work function and to carry out interaction between the employer and the employee on issues related to its performance.

An employment contract on remote work and agreements on changing the terms of the employment contract on remote work determined by the parties may be concluded through the exchange of electronic documents. At the same time, the location of the employer is indicated as the place of conclusion of the employment contract on remote work, agreements on changing the terms of the employment contract on remote work determined by the parties.

employment contract on remote work may establish an additional condition on the duty of the remote employee to use equipment, software, information protection and other means provided or recommended by the employer in the performance of his or her employment function under the employment contract on remote work.

The employee has the right to use his personal equipment, software and hardware, and information protection tools in the framework of remote work. Collective agreements, local regulations adopted taking into account the opinion of the elected body of the primary trade union organization, labor agreements on remote work may provide for the procedure for compensating costs associated with the use of personal equipment, software and hardware, and information protection tools by an employee.

The employee and the employer establish the procedure for interaction, which provides for a specific time for the remote employee to perform a labor function within the working time established by the labor contract on remote work. The procedure for interaction is established by a local normative act adopted taking into account the opinion of the elected body of the primary trade union organization, an employment contract on remote work. The interaction procedure may provide for the duty of the remote employee to respond to calls, emails and requests of the employer made in a different form, as well as the period during which the remote employee is obliged to respond to requests of the employer related to the performance of the work function. The employee is not obliged to respond to the employer's requests made in any form, outside the time established by the procedure for interaction.

If the procedure for interaction was not agreed by the parties to the employment contract on remote work or the employee was not familiarized with the relevant local normative act in the manner provided for in this chapter, the employee cannot be held liable for untimely response or absence of response to the employer's requests related to the performance of the labor function.

case of industrial necessity, the employer may, with the consent of the employee, involve him in the performance of the labor function outside the time established by the procedure for interaction, with the payment of this work in the manner established to pay overtime, in accordance with article 152 of this Code.

The agreement of the parties, production need, accident of natural or technogenic character, production accident, industrial accident, the fire, flood, earthquake, epidemic, epizooty and any exceptional cases threatening life or normal vital conditions of all population or its part can be the bases for establishment of the mode of temporary remote (remote) job

Wages for temporary remote (remote) work are paid in full, while maintaining the volume of work due to the employment contract.

Read also

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• Experience in moving companies to remote work
• Remote Security Issues and Recommendations
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Notes