Using hard data as a starting point, we explore the changing world of hybrid work. Guided by our own experiences of neurodivergence and disability, we debate how a more collaborative and accessible approach can drive efficiency across the public sector. In most cases we find that it can be done using technology that governments already possess.  

As a former policy advisor with hands-on experience of shaping equality legislation, these issues are all very close to my heart. 

Aligning leaders and teams to make hybrid work, work

The first episode of the Public Sector Podcast Series, season four, is The Future of Work – Facing the Hybrid Challenge. In it, Microsoft’s Henry Rex, industry advisor, and Rakhi Sachdeva, modern workplace specialist, discuss findings from the latest Work Trends Index report. The numbers reveal a significant disconnect between managers and teams around attitudes to remote working. 87 percent of remote employees reported feeling confident in their productivity at work, while only 12 percent of managers felt the same way about the performance of their remote teams.  

Managers can benefit from investing more trust in their teams and using soft skills to ensure that everyone gets access to the vision and culture of the organisation, which is key to productivity. Helping staff learn new skills ‘on the go’ improves both retention and productivity. We also discuss how a more flexible approach to work can empower individuals who have differing needs to be more effective. Building trust between management and staff enables everyone to align around the public service mission; as Henry Rex points out, people often join an organisation for the money, but stay there for the culture.

Neurodivergence and the innovation challenge

In episode two, Innovate Together, Microsoft account technology strategist, Andrew Boxall, talks about managing change in government and how it can enable staff to embrace more productive and collaborative ways of working. Along the way we discuss our shared experiences of being neurodiverse in the workplace, which provides insights into the challenges of data-driven innovation. 

Addressing bias and differing learning styles enables public servants to collaborate better across organisations. The Innovate Together initiative, supported by Microsoft, aims to accelerate innovation and best practice sharing across the public sector. Trailblazers like Norfolk County Council provide an inspirational example of how advanced techniques such as robotic process automation can drive efficiency.  

Success depends on leaders who set an example and have the initiative to share their learnings. All our guests agreed that making better use of existing tools is a great way to achieve incremental efficiency gains in government, and start building confidence. 

Extending accessibility and inclusion to drive productivity 

In episode three, Accessibility, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, I speak to Maria Grazia Zedda, senior EDI manager at HS2, who is severely deaf. Maria Grazia speaks movingly about overcoming the challenges of disability and hardship when she arrived in London as a young woman. London is also where she found support on her career path and discovered her vocation, improving accessibility in the workplace for everyone. These uplifting experiences are captured in her first novel which is to be published in her native Italy. 

Maria Grazia welcomes the adoption of new technologies that enhance accessibility and inclusion, such as minicoms and auto-captions (Live Captions in Microsoft Teams), the use of which was accelerated by remote working. The momentum now needs to be maintained so that inclusion becomes a fundamental principle of the workplace and the built environment. 

Explore episodes from our previous series 

Our previous three podcast series provide fascinating insights into how efficiency in the public sector could be improved with fresh thinking.  

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season One

In Public Sector Podcast Series – Season 1, guests discuss how citizen services can be enhanced using new digital technologies. Further episodes explore the challenges of managing security across government in a digital world, and overcoming the barriers to legacy estate reduction. Hindsight is also explored as a means of understanding past mistakes and improving government performance in the future.

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season Two

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season 2 builds on these themes, looking at how citizen identity in government can be managed simply and securely. The challenges of hybrid work, and the uses of geospatial data science in the context of the government’s levelling-up agenda, are also up for discussion. A highlight from series two is the episode that draws lessons from the Environment Agency’s experience of digital transformation. Cross-government data sharing also comes under scrutiny.

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season Three

Public Sector Podcast Series – Season 3 digs deeper into data sharing and how citizens engage with government. We assess the government’s Green agenda and the challenge of data literacy in driving innovation across the public sector. And what, we ask, do young people think about entering public service? We devote an episode to figuring out the changing face of apprenticeship in a hybrid world.

Find out more

Successful trial of the Microsoft and Socitm Change Agent programme

Our innovation – Norfolk County Council

Microsoft 365 Collaboration Blueprint for UK Government – Microsoft Industry Blogs – United Kingdom

How the public sector can streamline operations and innovate with intelligent automation – Microsoft Industry Blogs – United Kingdom

About the author

Aaron has worked at Microsoft as an industry advisor for central government for the last four years. Before that he spent twenty-five years in the public sector across a number of departments, in both central and local government, leading on technology policy and strategy. Most notably, he worked on the creation of the Equality Acts (2006 and 2010), the Public Sector Equality Duty and the translation of the EU Accessibility Regulations over to the UK. Outside of his day job, Aaron lectures on accessibility, inclusion and neurodiversity at local institutions and across the wider tech sector.

The post How to make government more effective in a hybrid world: podcast series appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In the current economic environment, banks and other financial services firms recognise the need to embrace digital transformation to get maximum value from their technology investments and do more with less. Leveraging technology also helps businesses to navigate emerging risks while driving sustainable and responsible business outcomes internally and with their customers. But how are they approaching these challenges? Last week I attended Sibos 2022 in Amsterdam, where business leaders, policy makers and technologists came together for deep dive debates and big picture outlooks on the future of the corporate banking market, including lending, trade and treasury solutions, and the related capital markets instruments. The energy and excitement on the pace of innovation was clear and I saw many themes that resonate with where we aim to lead the market in our Microsoft UK Financial Services business.  

Geopolitical tensions, the economic environment, evolving cyber threats, the race to Net Zero, the competitive landscape and ongoing reimagination of business models, modernising policy and regulation, and the continuous innovation of what is possible with people, process and digital technology are driving rapid change in the industry. When managed correctly, this change can unlock new opportunity. 

The industry is leading in many areas of technology, product and operating-model innovation, but a responsible business purpose and sustainable societal outcomes are now firmly embedded as objectives that banks are expected to deliver. “We should not seek innovation for innovation’s sake,” noted HM Queen Máxima of the Netherlands in the opening plenary. “With each new technology, we must always ask ‘What problems are we trying to solve?’” At the same time, we need to ensure any innovation is done securely and collaboratively while being additive to interoperability of data and platforms. The IMF predicts technological fragmentation can cut a country’s GDP by five percent; the benefit of collaborative industry approaches and ecosystem business models is clear. 

Through all the customer, partner, and colleague conversations at Sibos 2022, and while contributing and learning as much as we could about new ideas and technologies, the Microsoft UK Financial Services team took away four main action points: 

1.      Transform securely  

One of the key things that was highlighted by industry leaders was the importance of getting cyber security basics right to enable secure transformation. “The human firewall is the first line of defence,” said Nicolas Trimbour, Head of Fraud Prevention and Chief Data Officer for Cash Management at BNP Paribas. It’s important to educate employees and customers to recognise phishing, scams and ransomware attempts especially while the attach surface grows with increased digitisation and growing ecosystem business models. 

AI/ML solutions can work at high performance across large amounts of data to spot fraud or suspicious activity in transactions and endpoints. An industry-specific cloud solution that uses a completely private data model, while offering full data portability can help organisations as they shift from on-premise to hybrid or cloud-native architectures. At the same time, organisations can benefit from built-in security and compliance offerings that infuse healthy cyber hygiene. 

Our security experts have pulled together resources, training and more to help your teams empower and educate your employees and customers to be cyber aware. This is the right time to focus on this with October being Cyber Security Month. Check out our Cyber Security Awareness Month resources. 

2.      Build a talent and collaboration model that supports your digital ambitions   

Banks need access to the right engineering and digital skills at scale to drive industry digitisation and innovation. This is not just about attracting the talent, but re-skilling and up-skilling current resources and creating an empathetic, flexible culture. I’ve often heard it said that the number one headwind on many banks’ ability to execute on their digital transformation strategies is access to the right talent and skills. “We need to make sure we invest in our people and support them in their growth,” says Erika Irish Brown, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer and Global Head of Talent at Citi.  

At Microsoft, we’re helping financial services institutions give their employees the digital skills they need. Whether that’s showing how decentralised teams can work collaboratively while working remotely, using tools to securely automate processes and workflows, or empowering pro dev, citizen dev and fusion dev teams to develop new apps, processes and reporting to make their work simpler in their domains. With 53 percent of employees more likely to prioritise health and wellbeing over work, leaders must take an empathetic approach to building a hybrid workplace. A culture that embraces flexibility and prioritises wellbeing will build a thriving organisation and drive long-term sustainable growth. This webinar with my colleague Craig Wellman goes into the importance of planning, leadership and culture in transforming financial services. 

3.      Align your ESG objectives to your business value 

The banking industry has a societal obligation to direct funding, capital, investment and lending to businesses in the real economy that will move the needle positively on ESG measures and on carbon reduction. And not only do customers, stakeholders, investors, regulators and governments expect it, but it’s also good for business. “$97 trillion needs to be invested to get to net zero. That’s a massive opportunity. It’s the most strategic and important thing we can do as an industry,” says Marisa Drew, CSO at Standard Chartered. 

The best way to start building effective ESG strategies is to tie it into your business value. Some institutions are already including their sustainability results in their financial statements. However, the industry faces challenges. A lack of global standard around climate reporting, mixed with slow manual processes and siloed data can affect how quickly you can build an effective strategy. “We don’t have perfect data, but we have actionable data,” says Gill Lofts, Global Financial Services Sustainable Finance Leader at EY. 

A unified and resilient cloud infrastructure like Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability can help you gain visibility across your data, drive efficiency, track and minimise your environmental impact and create sustainable value chains. We also need to drive more cross-industry collaboration.

“This is a planet-scale problem that needs planet-scale innovation and collaboration,” says Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft.

When we made our sustainability commitment in 2020, we also decided to share our learnings, results and practices, and increase our focus on supporting our customers drive their own ESG agendas. 

4.      Lead on innovation that can open new sources of value  

Recent innovations are increasingly moving from POC to production adoption across digital assets such as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). 

While AI has been leveraged in organisations for a long time to reduce risk and streamline operations, organisations need to take a novel approach to AI to create new avenues of growth. “People don’t think of AI as a way to get to a new digital business,” says Sameena Shah Managing Director, AI Research Executive, and Chief Transformation Officer for Client Onboarding at JP Morgan Chase. “You need to bring people with a business mindset together with people with AI knowledge.” These groups, known as fusion teams, can help organisations deploy solutions up to two and a half times faster than siloed teams. 

“Cash as a form of payment has been declining, but cash in circulation is growing. We have also seen over the past 10 years the rise of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies and CBDCs,” says Marion Laboure, Senior Economist at Deutsche Bank. 

One thing digitisation can do is help with financial inclusion. The 1.7 billion people who don’t have access to financial services can potentially use CBDC to start using financial services without a bank account. 

NFTs are currently used to tie ownership to a digital asset. However, as they evolve, it could allow the construction of the end asset to be more sophisticated. “That’s when it becomes more interesting to us in Finance. We can look at a new type of securitised asset, a new type of yield profile that may or may not be totally uncorrelated with traditional markets and assets,” said John Egan, CEO of L’Atelier at BNP Paribas. In fact, the US Securities and Exchange Commission are already looking into NFTs as a security. With no intermediaries, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is less complex and more agile than the traditional central counterparty model. However, it is probably riskier. Experts suggest a hybrid model for DeFi, with the right regulatory guiderails to manage AML, fraud, conduct risk, and cybercrime. 

“Web3 and blockchain technologies are unique because they create a different, efficient way of executing processes. They can be best served to decrease complexity, increase security and transparency,” says Willayna Banner, Microsoft’s Head of Web3/Blockchain in Financial Services. Learn how organisations are using blockchain to transform functions such as trade finance and commercial specialty insurance. 

Collaborating for industry growth and responsible innovation 

As we shared these thoughts and ideas on the future of banking at Sibos 2022, a recurring theme was industry collaboration across the widest perimeter of stakeholders. To drive growth while being resilient, secure and compliant in our changing industry, our key priorities must be removing friction, increasing interoperability and improving the service experience for our customers, empowering our teams, and driving inclusive, sustainable innovation. 

Find out more 

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services 

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Service Webinar for Financial Services: The changing role of the Digital Contact Centre

Rethinking the Customer Experience | Microsoft

About the author 

Niall is responsible for defining and leading Microsoft’s strategy for Financial Services in the UK. His focus is on helping Microsoft’s customers’ address industry-wide challenges, adapt to new regulatory frameworks and achieve business transformation through the adoption of Microsoft technology and partner solutions. He works to deliver on the cost, growth, risk and regulatory agenda front-to-back through the enterprise. 

Niall has experience in consulting, partner ecosystems, and large programme delivery in Financial Services. Niall has focused on operating model transformation and technology solutions for business challenges in Banking and Capital Markets, often in the regulatory change context. He has worked mostly with international banking groups and has lived in Hong Kong and London. 

The post The future of banking: How to stay innovative, collaborative and secure appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

It will take time for the new hybrid workplace to emerge. At Microsoft, we continue to take a people and design-centred approach to hybrid working. To help leaders build an inclusive hybrid workplace, we focus on the perspectives of four employees. We look at their wants and needs, their current situation, and what their desired normal future of work looks like.

• Balancing work and home: Sarah’s story
• Building inclusivity and accessibility: Raj’s story
• Staying connected while apart: Mike’s story
• Starting a new career: Veronica’s story

Balancing work and home: Sarah’s story

Sarah is an architect in the construction industry. She is a professional, a wife and mother, and the primary carer of two daughters. As a result, she finds balancing work and home demands a constant struggle.

Pre-remote working

Before our shift to remote working, Sarah often struggled to achieve a healthy balance between her professional and family life. Long days could involve up to four hours in the car. There were design meetings, planning meetings and site visits to attend, often at multiple locations. Sometimes she would get home late. That meant she would miss the opportunity to catch up with her family. This made her feel disconnected and like she was failing at home.

Remote working

Not having to travel has been a revelation for Sarah. Home schooling is difficult to manage. However, the extra 10+ hours a week Sarah gains by not travelling means she can spend more time with her family. Also, she has more time to keep her clients happy and projects on track.

As everyone got used to remote working, there were some initial misunderstandings and mistakes. However, everyone quickly adapted.

Whereas she would do this informally in the office, smaller scheduled meetings and more regular diarised check-ins helped Sarah stay on top of her work. Unfortunately, Sarah’s broadband was disconnected for two days and that had a big impact on everyone – work, school and entertainment were all affected. The family have since changed provider and upgraded their package to make the connection more reliable.

Sarah’s desired normal in the future of work

A year on, Sarah does occasionally miss the buzz and connection of the office. It’s made her recognise the importance of face-to-face connection. But through remote working, she has found a work life balance that was unobtainable before. Her firm are discussing their return to workplace strategy. Sarah hopes she can continue to be empowered to meet her client, project and family needs in a way that works well for her.

Building inclusivity and accessibility: Raj’s story

Raj is a partner at a management consulting firm. He has a late acquired disability. This has impacted the way he delivers his work.

Pre-remote working

Raj was happy with his career progression. However, his late acquired disabilities meant he faced a lot of challenges delivering his work. Unable to use public transport or stay overnight in new cities without elaborate carer arrangements, Raj had a lot of restrictions in terms of the customers he could serve.

For the customers he could serve, Raj had to put in a lot of effort to manage travel arrangements. Also, he had to deal with all the unknowns that come with new locations. He remembers several occasions when he had to wake up at 4am to be part of morning face to face meetings. To do that, his wife needs to assist him, as the carer can’t attend that early. At times, he would travel over three hours for a two-hour face to face customer meeting and make the same arduous journey back. There were several incidents where he came across meeting rooms that were not accessible. In all this, he never felt that he was doing anything extraordinary because that was the only way he could get work done – that was his normal.

Remote working

2020 changed Raj’s whole perspective about workplace productivity. It also changed his opinion on the meaning of equitable environments for people with disabilities. The rapid pace of digital transformation enabled an unprecedented level of digital inclusion in our society.

Overnight, everything became more accessible. All those customers that Raj couldn’t travel to are now in his reach. With all the time saved he has become much more productive. His wellbeing has also improved, as he no longer worries about accessibility when travelling to meet clients. This year, Raj is handling three times the workload compared to last year. He still has time to publish new intellectual property, mentor colleagues and students and advise start-ups. He also has more time to spend with his family.

Raj’s desired normal in the future of work

What’s been brought home to Raj is the power of technology. It’s a major catalyst to enable the full participation of people with disabilities in the digital economy. Raj realises he has a voice and role in taking this opportunity forward and removing the barriers to a truly inclusive digital future of work.

Staying connected while apart: Mike’s story

Mike is an assistant buyer for a large online retailer. He is single and has no dependents. This job is the first time he has lived away from home.

Pre-remote working

Mike has been an assistant buyer for two years. After graduating from a university – which was close to his hometown – he took the brave step of leaving his friends and family. He moved 200 miles for his job. His working life was spent either in the office, on the road, or travelling across Asia with colleagues looking for the next great product.

Mike’s social life also circulated around work. He caught up with colleagues over a coffee, is a member of the company sports team and enjoyed team socials. While Mike lived alone, most of his time was spent with others either at work or in social situations.

Remote working

In 2020, Mike shifted to working from home. Due to both his work and personal technology, he felt he could be just as productive or even more productive than when he was travelling. In the beginning, he was enjoying not having to travel. He was able to do things that he did not have time for before. After a few weeks however, he started to realise how much he relied on work for social interaction and began to feel isolated. After four months, the social isolation took its toll. Mike decided to move back home.

Mike’s desired normal in the future of work

Mike can see that there are plans to return to the office. Soon, things will start to go back to some kind of normality. He is looking forward to getting back into the office. He’s also starting to travel again as he has missed those elements of the role. However, Mike has proven that he can be productive from anywhere. While remote working has made some things complex, he believes hybrid working is the way to go.

Mike has been speaking to his manager about the possibility of a home working contract. He doesn’t want to permanently relocate again. In addition, he believes the company would get more value from this arrangement. Mike has decided that if his employer forces him to move closer to the office then he will have to look for a new position. The market for his skills appears buoyant.

Starting a new career: Veronica’s story

Veronica is an intern at a large tech company. She is excited to pick up experiences and skills which would help her secure her first job once she has obtained her degree.

Pre-remote working

Veronica’s excitement to start her work placement turned to dread in 2020. She had moved to a new city to be near her workplace. She was looking forward to onboarding into her role, meeting her colleagues and getting settled in. Yet government restrictions meant that all offices closed.

Remote working

On-boarding into her new role was difficult. There was great supporting infrastructure in the form of digital platforms, training, and tools. However, Veronica felt she would have benefited from more 1:1 guidance and mentoring, especially whilst she was settling in. Instead, she found that her days were full of meetings. Whilst everyone was generally helpful, it could at times be overwhelming. She was sometimes unsure of whether she was prioritising the right tasks. This made her feel anxious.

Veronica’s desired normal in the future of work

Veronica hopes the world will learn from the last year. Digital tools are a great benefit and enable ‘work anywhere’ flexibility. However, she has found as someone early in career, that sometimes working in the same space as her team can have benefits too, such as building a greater sense of camaraderie and connection. She feels that if she had had more help in her on-boarding it would have helped to build her confidence faster and to accomplish more during her work placement.

Designing the hybrid workspace in the future of work

The future of work needs to be intentionally focused on three things:

• The work we will do.
• How we will work.
• The value the work creates.

The workplace shouldn’t be focussed on location. Nor should it be driven by the personal preferences and habits of the influential few. With just these four stories, we can see how different individual preferences are. But what connects them? Digital technology.

By taking a people-oriented approach we can design the future of work. We’ll build strategies that work for everyone. Investing in digital tools opens the door to the opportunity but investing in a digital culture realises it. Leaders have a pivotal role to play in enabling the future of work. They can empower others to do their jobs in a way that works for them, whilst also satisfying the needs and wants of the customers they serve.

Find out more

Microsoft Viva: The employee experience platform

Create an agile and innovative hybrid workplace

Enable the anywhere office

3 steps to build a successful hybrid working framework

About the authors

Prajakt is a management consulting professional with more than 17 years of experience in serving large global clients. He specialises in business consulting and advisory services; driving digital modernisation for customers.
Currently, Prajakt is an Industry Advisory Lead for the Local and Regional Government sector in Microsoft Services.
Previously, Prajakt was heading the Europe consulting services for Tech Mahindra serving large global customers like British Telecom, Vodafone, Telefonica etc., in addition to leading implementations for various smart city initiatives across the UK.

Terry Room is currently a Managing Architect for Microsoft Consulting Services in the UK. With over 20 years of technology industry experience, he leads a cross disciplinary team of consulting architects and digital advisors, with a focus on driving large scale business and technology transformation with strategic enterprise customers through the design of compelling business cases, resilient technology architectures, and transformation programmes which deliver sustainable business value.

The post The hybrid workplace: How organisations can build the future of work, inclusively appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

In the new world of work, it’s important to keep your people at the heart of your business. That’s why empowering them with the tools they need to work smarter will help you create an inclusive and resilient culture. A Forrester study found that workers realised almost two hours in daily productivity gains using Microsoft 365 on Surface, while reducing security breach costs by about 20 percent. We’re going to dive into the ways you can embrace the productivity gains of a robust security strategy, while empowering employees to do their best work from anywhere.

1.      Extend security across your entire stack

A security strategy needs to ensure your entire digital estate is secure. Ensure your entire stack is optimised with devices and applications that have built-in security based on a Zero Trust model. Surface meets the same security standards of all Microsoft software and services, making it a strategic part of your security stack.

But what is Zero Trust? It’s a security model that adapts to the new hybrid workplace and embraces mobility and remote working. By assuming breach, Zero Trust verifies each request or what resource it accesses regardless of where the request originates. By never trusting and always verifying, it ensures every access request is authenticated, authorised and encrypted before granting access.

This identity-based approach works in the background and enables things like single sign-on. Employees can, for example, sign into their Surface device with Windows Hello, a reliable, fully integrated biometric authentication based on facial recognition or fingerprint matching. Because the Surface optimises apps, it makes it easier for employees to work together. In fact, that same Forrester study I mentioned earlier also found that 88 percent of survey respondents said that Microsoft 365-powered Surface devices had helped their employees become more collaborative.

Construction firm Willmott Dixon saw an immediate improvement in productivity when using Surface and Microsoft 365. “A lot of our architects and engineers live quite far away. We now connect with them via Teams” says Simon Wilson, Senior Operations Manager. “We’ve seen projects that have reduced design time from 12 weeks to eight weeks. That is a true saving to the project.”

2.      Manage your security strategy your way

Zero Trust also helps your IT team manage your security infrastructure by combining threat protection, detection and response. Security can be managed from an easy to use control centre, protecting users, data, and endpoints. An integrated approach takes advantage of AI and automation. They take over low-level risk detection and real-time analytics to monitor and respond. This reduces chronic alert fatigue and means analysts can focus on critical alerts or higher threats.

The built-in security of Surface and Microsoft 365 makes it easy for your IT team to optimise to meet your specific needs. You can even go beyond traditional software-based policy management. Firmware configuration settings can deliver an extra level of hardware control and manageability. For example, the camera can be turned off for any device in highly secure areas to reduce risk. The built-in security of Surface and Microsoft 365 makes it easy for your IT team to optimise to meet your specific needs. You can even go beyond traditional software-based policy management. Firmware configuration settings can deliver an extra level of hardware control and manageability. For example, the camera can be turned off for any device in highly secure areas to reduce risk. Surface also benefits from three security features: Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) and Device Firmware Configuration Interface (DFCI).

TPM: This military-grade security protects the keys used in authentication and encryption.

UEFI: This protects the firmware from malicious attacks. Maintained by Microsoft, so that from the time the power button is pressed to the time that the operating system boots, organisations can avoid a critical vulnerability point and be assured that the latest UEFI updates are pushed out.

DFCI: Born from the Microsoft cloud offerings and enabled fast cloud deployment and management down to the firmware and component level. Benefit for those using AutoPilot via InTune, perfect for cloud first deployment, management and end of user decommission from your IT admin. DFCI gives users freedom to work from any location while still maintaining control and security.

Microsoft Surface Enterprise Management Mode (SEMM) is a feature of Surface devices with Surface UEFI that allows you to secure and manage firmware settings within your organization. With SEMM, IT professionals can prepare configurations of UEFI settings and install them on a Surface device.

While these make it easy for your IT team to manage, a compliant organisation often hears from employees that security measures make it harder for them to access the tools they need to work. When you have built-in security, you can ensure pain-free access without compromising the employee experience. A biometric single sign-on such as Windows Hello can make it faster for your employees to log in. Additions like multi-factor authentication can also reduce credential attacks by 99 percent.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) actively serves 25 million British citizens. Their cloud-first strategy allows them to be more agile and efficient. As a result of this approach, they are less reliant on expensive and hard-to-maintain on-premise infrastructure and are able to scale with the demands of business. By pairing this approach with Surface devices, they’re ensuring advanced security standards are applied from chip to cloud. “We’re making sure our solution covers all these security standards without limiting user experience,” says Nava Ramanan, Workplace Computing Lead Technical Architect at DWP.

3.      Minimise risk and reduce costs and complexity

With the right tools and devices it is possible to increase security and productivity while reducing costs and complexity. Surface powered by Microsoft 365 improves enterprise security by reducing both the number of security breaches and remediation costs—all without impacting workforce productivity or the employee experience. Forrester found that the number of annual breaches was reduced by 50 percent per year by using two-factor authentication, Advanced Threat Analytics, and Surface Enterprise Management Mode (SEMM).

By integrating new agile methods of device deployment and management, you can improve IT efficiency while reducing overheads. When combining Surface with Microsoft AutoPilot and Windows 10 Pro, IT teams saved four hours per device deployed.

As a local government, Warwickshire County Council is under increasing pressure to make resources go as far as possible while maintaining and improving services for its community. They made the bold decision to reduce costs by going from a combination of eight different devices to just one. They deployed Windows AutoPilot to optimise their IT team and ensure staff could start working straight out of the box.

“In just three months we migrated 4,500 staff to Microsoft 365 and Surface Pro. And less than one percent of users raised any issue with that at all,” says Craig Cusack, Assistant Director for Enabling Services.

Keeping workforce productivity at the heart of your security strategy

When you integrate your devices, apps and cloud security provisions, based on a Zero Trust principle, you can drive a highly orchestrated, centrally managed security solution. This makes it easier for your IT team to manage and deploy. It also embraces productivity and collaboration to ensure your employees stay secure and working at their best, even when remote.

UK law firm Shakespeare Martineau rolled out Surface devices to pair agility and freedom with improved end-point security, flexible productivity and practicality. In the end, it did much more, including improving morale, productivity and reducing downtime. They also saw an increase in billable hours and enhanced client satisfaction.

“Microsoft Surface complimented our strategy and was the device of choice to support our positive passionate people. The product is very good – in style, different ways of working and real performance – and it gives our staff the agility and freedom to work in a way that suits their lives whilst maximizing productivity and effectiveness,” says Dal Virdi, IT Director.

This also has the advantage of doing more with less. Implement new agile ways of working with a standardised portfolio that optimises the software and apps you run. Not only will this encourage your employees to work better together, but you’ll also benefit from improved efficiency and reduced overheads. That way you can spend more time innovating and delivering a great experience for the customers you support.

Find out more

Security and Endpoint Management with Surface: Surface for Business

Visit the website: Reimagine security and risk management

Download the eBook: Modernise your endpoint security strategy

Resources for your development team

Read the blog: Data security and encryption best practices

About the author

Chris is Surface for Business product portfolio lead for Microsoft in the UK. As the owner of the UK product proposition, Chris enjoys understanding business challenges and bringing together product propositions that empower individuals and businesses to achieve their business objectives. With over 13 years of experience in hardware technology, Chris has held a number of roles in Product Management, Marketing and Sales across the industry in the UK and abroad.

The post 3 ways to create a robust security strategy for remote teams appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

At Microsoft, I’m constantly reminded of how advances in security technology can enable productivity and collaboration. How it can actually create and improve inclusive user experiences. We do this by adapting security policies and processes to reflect how users and consumers are utilising and engaging technology, and new ways of working, on an evolving basis.

What does this way of thinking mean? It means that a people-first approach is essential when considering the best approach to cyber resilience and business continuity. Especially as you navigate the next steps, and prepare you for the unexpected. It will also support your employees to do their best, no matter where they are, or what their circumstances.

Here are four shifts that will support your organisation on the journey to resilience and inclusivity.

1. Drive the future of security with digital empathy

The most successful organisations who empower their people to achieve more by being productive from anywhere, are the ones who are empathetic to the end-user experience. Sometimes this can be a friendly voice over a Teams call, or assisting them as they adapt to new ways of working.

Digital empathy also stretches to making digital solutions more inclusive. This means having tools and policies that adapt to people’s ever-changing circumstances.

Bring Your Own Device Policies

With more users becoming remote and working flexibly, it can be inconvenient for users to carry multiple corporate and personal devices. Its great to see financial institutions rethinking their approach to Bring Your Own Device (BOYD) policies. This offers flexibility and choice for users. It can also speed up the onboarding process and reduce costs in sourcing and maintaining devices.

Of course, this doesn’t come without risk. To protect users’ privacy and control access to corporate services and data, the devices need to be both ‘trusted and healthy’. By utilising a management tool like Intune to prevent unauthorised access and compromise you can:

• Manage at the device level. Mobile Device Management (MDM) lets you enroll devices for management. This includes all data that lives on the device. You have full control to ensure the device is compliant and can manage settings, certificates, and profiles.
• Another approach is Mobile Application Management (MAM). This works well for BYOD scenario. With MAM you can publish, push, configure, secure, monitor, and update mobile apps for your remote workers. This provides application-level controls and compliance, while maintaining the familiar user experience for end users.

2.      A Zero Trust security approach

As employees started working remotely en masse, the traditional type of ring-fenced security had its disadvantages. It often struggled to meet the need of a hybrid workforce, working from different locations, and from multiple devices. Therefore adopting a Zero Trust approach to business continuity and security became an imperative.

The key principles of Zero Trust are quite straightforward:

• Never trust
• Always verify
• Assume compromise

In a Zero Trust model, access by users and devices – both inside and outside the corporate network – is granted based on an evaluation of the risk associated with each request. The same security checks are applied to all users, devices, applications and data every time.

To start with Zero Trust, it’s important to realign around identity. This can benefit employees, as it makes it easier for them to use single sign-on or access data across multiple devices. For example, multi-factor authentication prevents 99 percent of credential theft and other intelligent authentication methods can make accessing apps easier and more secure than just using traditional passwords. This also helps create robust BYOD strategies that work in unison to enable users to be both secure, and productive.

Of course, it’s important to pair a Zero Trust strategy with advanced threat protection and information protection. This helps to detect and prevent lateral movement, and data loss, no matter where it resides.

3.      A people-led focus to a secure control environment

What normally works on-premise does not easily transfer to a cloud or hybrid operating model. particularly when accessing critical services and data from multiple sources.

For example, how is your Virtual Private Network (VPN) set up? It can often force all your network traffic through on-premises data centres, slowing down services and making it hard for employees to work. This may cause frustration. It can cause employees to look for workarounds, potentially bypassing safeguarding controls and policies, and downloading apps from the internet.

This scenario can be fixed by initiating split-tunnelling. This allows trusted cloud services like Microsoft 365 to be accessed straight over the internet. Your VPN can then be used to access critical apps and data that reside in your Data Centre, reducing the load.

In addition, a Cloud Access Security Blocker (CASB) gives you rich visibility over your shadow IT. It provides a centralised approach to monitor and protect access to data, on cloud based apps. As an example, we implemented Cloud App Security for more than 150,000 employees globally. Apps that don’t meet our stringent security standards are blocked. Popular and trusted apps are onboarded to our Azure Active Directory, making it easier for employees to access what they need securely.

4.      Providing resilient education to improve security

As cybersecurity matures, so do adversaries. They are adept at changing techniques and tactics, and at exploiting local or global events to lure victims via phishing campaigns. Using cloud-based security means you can take advantage of intelligent threat protection and analytics. For example, we collect and analyse over 8 trillion telemetry signals daily from a diverse set of products, services, and feeds around the globe. At the same time, you need to ensure your employees have the knowledge to protect themselves to reduce compromise. During times of crisis and change, users need to be warned to expect more phishing and social engineering attempts. It’s also useful to understand the psychology behind what makes people click.

This stretches beyond standard cybersecurity training. It’s about being empathic as I mentioned earlier, to what is going on inside and outside of the company. As much as we talk about external threats, we must be mindful to the increase in insider threats as well.

Insider threats

With all the changes that may be happening, we have to be mindful to how users are adapting and coping with the situation. We need to think about the stressors (fear and uncertainty about their jobs, balancing work and home life), and how this could impact a person.

Not all insider risks are malicious in intent. It can often come down to a lack of awareness of policies, knowledge, or frustration of not being able to work productively, that leads to mistakes. Conversely concerning behaviour, such as downloading or printing sensitive files, renaming files, using unapproved apps, or copying files onto external devices could be a sign of malicious intent.

While these behaviours don’t automatically arouse suspicion, it’s important to actively look for patterns of anomalous behaviour and mitigate them. With digital empathy, we can pre-empt and reduce some of the stressors or situations with wellbeing programmes and education that are empathetic and supportive to employees, reducing the chance of insider risks.

An effective security culture allows users to work productively while they help keep the business safe. Our built-in approach to security works across platforms, locations and tools – so it’s easier for your people to comply.

The future of security

One of the things we’ve learnt this year is to expect severe, but plausible scenarios. It can seem daunting to prepare for the extreme unknowns – but that’s what we have to do. Organisations are becoming more reliant on cloud and hybrid technologies. Therefore, successful strategies must include a people-based approach to cyber resilience. These four shifts, focussing on digital empathy and zero trust will help you to take advantage of innovative and integrated technologies that enable you to achieve more, with less.

Find out more

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About the author

Sarah Armstrong-Smith is a Chief Security Advisor in Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Solutions Group. She principally works with FSI customers in the UK and strategic customers across Europe, to help them evolve their security strategy and capabilities to support digital transformation and cloud adoption.

Sarah has a background in business continuity, disaster recovery, data protection and privacy, as well as crisis management. Combining these elements means she operates holistically to understand the cybersecurity landscape, and how this can be proactively enabled to deliver effective operational resilience.

Sarah has been recognised as one of the most influential women in UK Tech and UK cybersecurity and regularly contributes to thought leadership and industry publications.

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