March 2020 saw the beginning of worldwide lockdown measures that forced the majority of businesses worldwide to work remotely in response to COVID-19. Organizations quickly pivoted their operations from office environments to work-from-home (WFH) models, significantly impacting productivity, performance, and security. These are among the findings of the “2020 Work-from-Home IT Impact Study,” commissioned by Sectigo and conducted by independent research firm Wakefield Research, which polled 500 IT professionals at companies with at least 1,000 employees in the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Ireland, and UK, to understand the impact of the worldwide crisis on large businesses.
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Transforming to a fully remote work environment required quick updates to technology, processes, and procedures, resulting in repercussions to revenue and cybersecurity. However, the survey revealed that despite the need to adapt to a rapidly changing work environment, IT professionals report that their organizations saw performance improvements. In fact, almost half of respondents (49%) report that employee productivity at their company has increased as a result of widespread WFH measures.
“As C-Level executives continue to embrace the increased productivity of a distributed workforce, they need to consider new approaches to security that rely on automation and secure digital identities,” said Sectigo CEO Bill Holtz. “The reality is that the enterprise currently uses a mix of authentication tools that frequently include outdated or weak methods. This research indicates that with many employees remaining at home for the foreseeable future or even permanently, refining how we grant and manage digital access is more important than ever.”
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