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William Ham Bevan

William Ham Bevan writes and edits for universities, UK national newspapers and government departments. He also enjoys touring France, 1980s junk culture and skiing at a relaxed pace.

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collaboration tool intrusion focus

Collaborative tools need your control to prevent employee overload

  • Leadership
  • min read
    • In centuries past, scholars at England's older universities had a foolproof system to make sure they could work in peace. Offices had two sets of doors. If only the inner door was closed, visitors were welcome to knock, but shutting the outer oak door (known as sporting the oak) meant do not disturb – and everyone, no matter how senior, was expected to observe. In 2021 many remote workers would welcome the digital equivalent of that sturdy oak door. Conferencing and workflow platforms like Slack, Zoom and Teams have revolutionized remote working – without these, the COVID-19 pandemic may have seen knowledge-based businesses struggle. But now, some employees find themselves on a carousel of virtual meetings, instant messages and urgent emails with little time for unbroken concentration. It's called 'collaborative overload,' 'tyranny of the inbox' or 'the collaboration curse.' Among its most influential commentators is bestselling business author and Georgetown University Professor Cal Newport. He popularized the term 'deep work:' Giving a single task undivided attention for an extended time. The power of deep attention In Professor Newport's words, "Deep work makes you better at what you do and provides the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craft, yet most spend their days in a frantic blur of email and social media." Emma Birchall is co-managing director of HSM, a future of work research consultancy. She told us, "We all thought the move to remote working would give us time to reflect, and that not sitting next to colleagues would give us space for deep work. But we've found most diaries are back-to-back with online meetings and notifications go off all day." It's an issue unlikely to go away as the pandemic recedes. Research commissioned by Kaspersky suggests some remote working will be a permanent fact of life for many, and "hybrid working" will become the new normal. Most (74 percent) don't want to return to some pre-COVID work practices, with 37 percent hoping for a flexible mix of working at home and in the office. What collaboration is meant to be like To get a handle on the problem, it's useful to identify what collaboration is meant to achieve. Alison Coward founded Bracket, an agency that helps teams work together more effectively. She champions 'purposeful collaboration:' Bringing diverse minds and skillsets together to solve complex challenges, but with each person's contribution developed through deep work. The most productive teams have periods of individual work alternating with collaborative sessions. Just being on Slack or Zoom doesn't equal collaboration but can give the illusion of it. It's a misconception that the tools can solve communication problems. One task at a time Sophie Leroy, Associate Professor of Management at University of Washington studies how technology can foster unhelpful work habits. Central to her work is 'attention residue:' When you break off a task to see to something else, your thought process can't disengage immediately from the old task. It means employees constantly hijacked by online interactions will always work at reduced effectiveness. She told Secure Futures, "I study different types of interruptions. There are intrusions, like people requesting my attention and making me switch tasks even though I may not want to. Then there are distractions – things more in the background. An email may pop up, for example, and you wonder what's in it. It starts bothering you. "Since the pandemic changed how we work, I've seen a huge increase in intrusions and distractions, and – perhaps worst of all – in multitasking. You may be in a meeting with many other windows open on your screen and be tempted to check emails and search chats. These things would've been rude in face-to-face meetings, but now no one knows you're doing it. "Because communication is so much more informal using online platforms, you get into the habit of doing this all the time. It's a problem because multitasking harms productivity." It's not just a matter of workers being interrupted, but also interrupting others. Leroy says, "Let's assume you're working on something and you have a question. Your chat window is open, so it's easy to pipe up with, 'do you have any information on this?' The technology tempts you to do that. "In an office, you might've written down the question for later when you see your colleague, but you don't get that chance for informal contact when working remotely. And these little interruptions help you feel connected to colleagues, which may motivate more interruptions." Taking control of collaboration tech One way to overcome intrusion from collaboration tools and give employees more chance to work deeply is to set ground rules across the organization, says Harriet Molyneaux, co-managing director at HSM. "Have a communications charter that sets expectations about when people will be online and whether they're supposed to be checking various channels." A company communications charter may limit the number of channels, say which digital platforms are appropriate for which kinds of collaboration or recommend 'asynchronous' methods (that can be answered later, like email) be used in place of synchronous ones, like an instant message. It should also include policies for urgent communications. Molyneaux says, "In our organization, outside normal working hours, we're not expected to be on instant messaging channels or answer email. Any messages there are picked up the next day. If you need someone urgently, you must use WhatsApp or call them. "We can all be smart in our use of tools. Most platforms let you set your status. If you're out for an hour or taking some time for deep thinking, make it 'please only contact me if urgent and do so by phone.' It's about getting team members to take control of tech rather than just thinking, 'we can contact everyone all day, every day.'" Sticking to the rules For a communications protocol to work, everyone must follow it. If some managers start arranging interactions outside the agreed framework, a digital presenteeism culture – employees feeling pressure to be always available online – can creep back. Sophie Leroy says, "You may say we're going to limit online meetings to 10 to 11 am and 1 to 2 pm each day, and the rest of the time is for focused work. But people may still think, am I going to be monitored and punished if I'm not visible? Will I be considered non-productive? Will I miss out on information if others are online? The organization must be clear about all this." It can be difficult to wean people off the habit of always checking messages on different channels. Leroy suggests a gradual approach. "You have to retrain your focus. Start with not checking for 10 minutes, then 15, up to an hour. It's hard, but people realize it's good for them and want to do it." Technology can help. Time-management methods like the Pomodoro Technique rely on breaking the working day into short, indivisible intervals, each for a single task. There are apps and browser plug-ins to help with this. "They're useful, but it must be individual choice," says Alison Coward. "Managers shouldn't mandate them. Everyone is different. It's about giving people time and space to find their own productivity techniques." Employees need the chance to give their work deep focus, free from interruptions and distractions that unbridled digital collaboration tools can bring. As these tools are suddenly everywhere thanks to the COVID-19 work-from-home shift, leaders must ensure their organization has policies to support deep work and prevent unnecessary intrusion. Most importantly, everyone must follow the protocols, from the newest intern to the C-suite. When we face high-tech problems, we should step back and remember we'll always need low-tech human values, like establishing and sticking to boundaries based on mutual respect and understanding.
remote team building

Remote team building just got a lot more interesting

  • Leadership
  • min read
    • Peer through any residential street window these days, and you'll likely see a homeworker at a kitchen-table workstation tapping on a laptop, brainstorming over Zoom or sharing files on workflow apps like Slack. But it's not just everyday work processes going online. Companies are increasingly discovering remote team building, including activities ranging from video treasure hunts to interactive escape rooms to cocktail-making masterclasses. Why do they see team building as so important at times like these? Not all team building is created equal Research suggests changes in work culture seen during the COVID-19 pandemic are here to stay. A survey by US tech researchers Enterprise Technology Research predicts remote workers will more than double in 2021 compared with before the outbreak, to make up 34 percent of the workforce. While most are happy with more flexible work patterns, working from home has downsides. Social media app firm Buffer asked 3,500 remote workers worldwide what they felt was the biggest struggle of working remotely. "Collaboration and communication" and "loneliness" came joint top. Remote team building could improve upon both issues. But when I asked Dr. Christine Grant, Deputy Head of Coventry University's School of Psychological, Social and Behavioral Sciences and author of Agile Working and Well-Being in the Digital Age, she cautioned. Employers should make sure they don't overload the schedules of people already spending swathes of their day on Zoom or Microsoft Teams calls. Virtual team building business is booming How can companies best engage scattered teams who may be suffering from videoconferencing fatigue? Many employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs,) have been content to take an informal approach, with activities led by people within the organization. HR insider magazines have come up with plenty of ideas that can work over video, from trivia quizzes and icebreaker games to office book clubs and a good old-fashioned Friday social. For something closer to the traditional day out of the office, expert guidance can help. Andy Wells, owner and founder of London-based team builders Zing Events, has worked with most FTSE 100 companies. Before 2020, he'd already noticed an uptick in demand for virtual events and had added app activities and remote options for events usually held live. But the pandemic forced more radical change in the company's model. "The number of events we run has increased massively. We were running around 300 live events a year, but we now have over 150 virtual bookings a month. Now we're working remotely, we can meet this demand. Staff don't have to travel around the country, so we can fit several events into one day. Before, our people would have to pick up the equipment, drive to the venue, set everything up, then run the activity." Timmon Whitehead, Managing Director of another team building outfit, White Rhino, said the company decided to ramp up its virtual offerings in March 2020, concentrating on tried-and-tested escape rooms and food-and-drink masterclasses previously offered live. These proved popular, and Whitehead puts down to employers wanting to recognize and reward staff efforts at a time of crisis. "People worked hard over lockdown, going above and beyond to keep things moving," he says. "The activities are a welcome break from that, and a chance to socialize with teammates and colleagues. People may constantly see each other on video calls, but they hardly get a chance to relax and enjoy time together. Virtual activities like socials and team challenges give that opportunity, and that's why they've been so well received." Murder mysteries or cocktail classes? There are broadly two types of remote team building activity. First, those entirely in the virtual realm. These rely on a bespoke app alongside videoconferencing on a laptop or desktop. Teams chat and collaborate while solving challenges and accumulating points, usually against a time limit, with a live leader board to keep it competitive. Popular scenarios include puzzle trails, crime-scene investigations and escape rooms. Wells estimates 40 percent of their bookings in the past year have been for the virtual escape room. Part of the appeal of virtual events is affordability – they can normally be run by one facilitator, cutting overheads. Team members can take part from anywhere. The second type of team-building event involves real-world activities overseen by an expert, for example, cook-alongs and cocktail masterclasses with ingredients received in advance. Though technically simpler, needing just videoconferencing, these events involve more logistics for all. To take part in a cook-along, employees need access to a kitchen and oven and must banish anyone else who shares the house to another room for the duration. Couriering equipment and ingredients to each participant comes at a cost. When virtual meets physical The most sophisticated activities combine real-life and virtual elements. White Rhino's Around The World Team Challenge uses a bespoke app to take participants on a journey through 22 countries. Players solve clues, answer questions and complete physical challenges, like learning kung fu moves in China, registered by image-recognition technology. Tasks earn travel credits, tallied up to determine where each team finishes. "The physical element is there by design," says Whitehead. "Many people now know the feeling of sitting at their desk in the morning, then looking up to find it's six o'clock – you've been in the same place all day. Anything we can do to get people up and about and be more active is fantastic, but we're conscious it needs to be suitable for everybody." Reputable events providers have a support team on hand to help with technical issues. They pay heed to security and encryption – guarding against the sort of "Zoombombing" intrusions that captured headlines last year when gatecrashers disrupted video meetings with pornography and other shock content. To get the most out of a virtual activity, teams need to be comfortable using the technology. On this front, Wells noticed a change over 2020. Dr. Grant notes tech-savviness is often generational. While older employees may have smartphones or tablets and find them helpful, they may find it harder to use more complex features. "Young people tend to use their phones for multiple activities, including playing games during downtime," she says. "But it's not so easy for everyone to do that, and you may lose a few people who would have engaged in face-to-face activities more easily. You don't want technology to become an inhibitor – activities need to be accessible to all." The hybrid future of work Keeping participants focused on the task rather than catching up on workplace gossip can also be a challenge. While co-workers may have had much formal contact through video calls with a specific task or agenda, they may not have had the chance to meet more informally – the "watercooler" conversations vital for team cohesion. This prompted Wells' company to make a simple tweak. "Our presenters used to get to the end, wrap up and finish the call. Now we leave the virtual meeting room open, so people can keep engaging and chatting. That's gone down well." Future work trend-spotters suggest "hybrid working" will soon become the norm. A recent survey of employees, managers and senior executives across several countries suggested a typical weekly schedule may involve a mix of remote and office-based work. This chimes with team-building companies. They're developing offerings to accommodate both on-site and remote participants. Whitehead says, "We're anticipating companies will return to running live events but will offer a virtual element as well. So if people aren't able to attend, or don't feel comfortable doing so, they can take part from their own home, playing the same game virtually and contributing to the same score as team members who take part live." Whatever the shape of work to come, virtual team building will remain a part of the toolkit for companies wanting to maintain a happy, connected workforce. Dr. Grant says, "With remote working, agile working or home working, socialization can be a problem. Even if you have on-screen meetings all the time, it's easy to feel invisible and isolated. "You need regular check-ins with colleagues and managers, making sure your well-being is OK, and interaction outside meetings. The organization needs to create an environment for this. We can use technology to help, but we need to make sure we use it to our advantage and deal with its less positive effects." As they negotiate the path to post-COVID-19 work culture, employers must rise to the challenge of maintaining strong connections between teams and colleagues. The fast-evolving remote team building industry provides options to suit many budgets and needs. How will you help your team grow relationships and collaboration skills for their future?
data security supply chain

Where you should tighten the privacy links in your data supply chain

  • Data and privacy
  • min read
    • A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Your business is responsible not just for upholding your customers' data privacy inside your organization. Everyone who uses the data on your behalf must be as privacy-conscious as you. Those data-handling partners may include accountancy, telecommunications and cloud storage, even office security and maintenance contractors. Personal data regulation takes privacy very seriously There's a legal reason strong privacy links in your supply chain matter, as well as a moral one. Privacy is at the core of the European Union's stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR.) It applies to personal data processed by organizations in the European Economic Area (EEA) and those outside that offer goods or services to those within. GDPR is the gold standard for data protection. Many other legislative frameworks have used it as a model, like California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA,) Brazil's Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD) and the proposed strengthening of Australia's Privacy Act 1988. Complying with GDPR won't always mean you're complying with other jurisdictions' regulations, so if you're sending personal data across borders, get local advice. GDPR is built around defining what it means to be a data controller or data processor, and what each must do. A controller decides what personal data to collect, gathers it and decides how to use it. A processor receives personal data from another party and processes it as directed, but doesn't decide how it's used. The law says controllers must use only processors with technical and organizational structures that ensure data privacy. Data breaches mean business disruption and reputational damage. Then there's the money. Under GDPR, controller and processor may face huge fines: 20 million euro or up to four percent of the previous year's turnover – whichever is greater. In 2019, British Airways faced a record-breaking 183 million British pounds for a breach. Privacy holes affect businesses of all sizes Although GDPR came into force in 2018, many companies still aren't paying attention, says Jamel Ahmed of UK data privacy consultants Kazient Privacy Experts. "It's true for large enterprises to small- to medium-sized businesses. I often find bigger companies have excellent internal data security processes. The compliance people will ask the right questions and demand evidence. But along the supply chain, there's a massive gap relating to personal data. It's to do with a lack of understanding, and limited awareness and expertise." Peter Wright agrees. He's Managing Director of UK's Digital Law, specializing in online, data and cyber issues. "It's been overlooked in the past. And while there's more awareness now, that doesn't mean it's enough." How to tighten the links 1.    Ask data-processing suppliers the right questions Do your due diligence when you start a relationship with a supplier that involves passing data. Ahmed says, "As a minimum, check new suppliers are registered with UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO,) or your country's equivalent. Check they have good policy and practice. Check they understand their data privacy obligations and responsibilities. "Do they have a dedicated data protection officer (DPO,) and what are their qualifications and experience? I'd also want to see evidence they've spent time developing good practices rather than just complying with a checklist they've downloaded from somewhere." 2.    Have a contract that goes above and beyond The GDPR says there must be a written contract between data controller and processor, and what the contract terms must be, including type of data, how long it may be kept for and the nature and purpose of data processing. Data privacy experts think agreements between controller and processor should go further, drilling down to detail, showing the controller is giving enough oversight. 3.    Have a plan in place for what the controller does when there's a breach Under GDPR, all businesses handling data must keep a breach log, recording details of security incidents. Controllers should expect to be able to see anything in the processor's log that relates to its data. Ahmed thinks businesses should go further again, having a detailed plan for what the processor must do if a data breach happens. Ahmed goes on to say, "The GDPR obliges the processor to tell the data controller as soon as they become aware of a breach. But the contract needs to explain what constitutes a breach and what "as soon as you become aware" means." 4.    Bake risk management into your operations Having a watertight supplier contract is just the first step. Wright and Ahmed stress data controllers should manage risk along the supply chain in a proactive and ongoing way. That means regular risk audits and going back to check data policies with clients and suppliers when circumstances change. Wright advises, "Regulators look at how businesses show compliance. They don't want you to hold up a contract audit that says, "Oh yes, we looked at this two years ago and it was fine." They want to see continuous updates. If the worst happens and there is a breach of personal data, they want to see evidence the business did all it could to comply with legislation. "You need to show you've looked regularly at your risk register and updated it after meetings. If a supplier changes its terms, show you investigated, asked questions and reviewed their answers. Regulators want to see the regular auditing, questioning and managing of risk baked into your operations." 5.    Be wary of how behavior changes may impact privacy Our changing ways of life and work mean we need to be vigilant about what's happening with our data. Wright says, "Homeworking has been adopted in ways never envisaged when IT systems were set up. You may have signed up to terms in 2017 and reviewed them during your 2018 GDPR due diligence, but the supplier may have since changed systems. "Say your teleconferencing provider, because of increased demand, says, "We're revising our terms because our servers are no longer in the EU. We have a new web services provider, but we can't confirm where your data is processed. Hope that's OK."" Businesses should insist on full disclosure of what's changed and whether there are knock-on effects on privacy. "Big questions need answering," says Wright. "Where's your data going? Is it following GDPR? Are they transferring business call recordings to servers outside the EEA? What security is in place? Is the data encrypted end to end?" 6.    Consider everyone in your supply chain One of the greatest pitfalls is not realizing your data is passed along the supply chain at all. The golden rule is to assume every business you work with is a data processor. Otherwise, lapses can happen, even with the most sensitive personal information – material classified as "special-category data" under the GDPR. That's anything that could be used for unlawful discrimination such as ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health records or biometric data. Ahmed has a cautionary tale. "One of my clients looked for third-party software to do psychometric testing for graduate recruitment. Throughout the procurement, they didn't realize this involved special-category data under GDPR. There was potential for serious repercussions in failing to assess the data protection impact." In the age of big data, ignorance is never a defense. If personal data is in your possession, you must stay up-to-date with legislation, but also ethics and best practice. Raise awareness of risks and responsibilities, inside and outside your organization. Doing so will reduce the chance of a data breach and ensure your customers know you're looking after their interests.
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Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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