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

Get the guide to building resilience

How modern cybersecurity helps you stay productive and resilient

3 ways the banking sector can innovate in the new normal

Join the conversation at Envision

Digital technology is changing not just how organisations operate but how leaders lead. Join us at Envision, where executives across industries come together to discuss the challenges and opportunities in this era of digital disruption. You’ll hear diverse perspectives from a worldwide audience and gain fresh insights you can apply immediately in your organisation.

Connect with leaders across industries to get relevant insights on leadership in the digital era.

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.

The post 4 ways to drive the future of security in the financial sector appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

So what does teaching look like when our students aren’t sat directly in front of us? What does it really mean to teach remotely? How do you inspire, manage, care for, and engage your students whilst you’re sat in your own home and they are in theirs? It can be difficult and daunting to find new ways of working in these times of change, especially when you are pushed out of your comfort zone and regular routine.

To help you deliver an uninterrupted experience for your students through virtual and remote learning, four of our top Microsoft Innovative Fellows have begun to explore these questions within their own schools and have kindly shared their insights with us.

1. Take the first step

Jimmy Edwards from St. Hele’s School in Plymouth recounts his first attempt at remote learning with Teams, what he learned and his tips to get started when you and your students are brand-new to Teams and remote learning.

Read more: 3 tips to get started with Microsoft Teams for remote learning

2. Prepare your workspace

Paul Watkins from Ygsol Bae Baglan in Port Talbot gives us his top tips for preparing your work station at home to be ‘teacher-ready’ even if you are wearing your fuzzy slippers. He shares his tips on how to take the fear out of being on camera with you students and how you can embrace Teams to help you reach your students remotely.

Read more: How to set up a remote learning workspace in 4 easy steps

3. Encourage student collaboration

Elaine Topham from Grimsby Institute outlines a variety of tools you may want to consider to foster communication and collaboration while in a remote learning situation. She has compiled a view of Office 365 tools that can help you with instruction and assessment.

Read more: Tools to support teachers with remote learning

4. Equip your students for the future digital workplace

Sarah Clark from Queen Anne’s High School in Fife shares with us a differentiated approach to remote learning. Making reaching your students accessible even if you are a novice at Teams or a seasoned technologist. Modelling a growth mindset with your students, sets them up for success in their future careers- particularly if they are using the same remote working technologies they will be using after they leave school

Read more: How to use Microsoft Teams for remote learning: tips for all abilities

While you may not need to utilise remote learning at this time, it is an excellent option when you consider your contingency planning for emergencies and disaster recovery. Floods, snow, fire, or other incidents that can prevent students from attending school require a thoughtful approach to remote learning.

Find out more

Explore resources to support remote learning

Discover how Imperial College London used Teams to connect and engage remotely

About the author

Jennifer King is an award-winning, international thought leader in Education with 20 years of experience in the education sector from classroom to corporations. She is passionate about the success of students and their teachers and how the power of technology can transform the way they work and learn. Jennifer was previously the Head of Film and Media at Strode’s College in Surrey before starting her own education consultancy. JKES was a Microsoft Education Partner with a focus on digital transformation, project based learning, and teacher professional development. Jennifer is also the creator of the Student Teacher Education Program. She has recently returned from Microsoft Corp in Seattle, where she was the Director of Education in 21^st Century Jobs, Skills, and Employability.

The post 4 tips to make the most of remote learning and deliver an uninterrupted student experience appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Here are a range of ways I have used Microsoft Teams in my secondary school classroom when I have needed to implement remote learning in the past to help guide you on how you can make the most of technology in these challenging times.

1. I’m a Microsoft Teams newbie

If you don’t have much experience with Microsoft Teams and are looking to use it to communicate with your pupils when they are not in school, the ‘Files’ section is a great place to upload documents for the pupils to access.

I use the ‘Files’ section in Teams when I want pupils to complete past exam paper questions by uploading the past paper as a PDF to the class materials folder. Pupils cannot edit files in the class materials folder. I then post a comment in the chat to let them know the file has been uploaded and tell them which questions I want them to complete.

My pupils will complete the work and later that day, I post the file with the answers so pupils can self-assess their work.

Pupils can also upload a picture of their work and ask for help at any point during the day.

Here are some other things you could do:

• • In your class Team click on the ‘Files’ tab and upload files from your computer/OneDrive.
  • In the ‘Chat’ tab at the top, post a comment to tell pupils what file you want them to access and what you want them to do.
  • Pupils can respond by commenting in the chat or uploading a photo of the work in their notebook

2. I’ve mastered the basics

If you have mastered the basics of using Teams and have been sharing files with pupils, you may want to start setting assignments for them using Teams too.

For me, this is an easy way to distribute a file to each pupil in the class and have pupils work on a task with a specific deadline. The file could be a Word document, PowerPoint, Forms quiz,  or even a OneNote page amongst other formats.

My senior pupils recently had to complete a lab report for an experiment they did in class. In the assignments tab in Teams, I inserted a blank Word document, added the headings for each section (aim, method, results, conclusion) and sent this out for pupils to complete within 2 days.

Straight away I could see who has viewed the assignment and who had completed it. I could view each pupil’s work without leaving Teams and was able to give them feedback with next steps. Pupils were then able to make changes and resubmit their work.

By setting assignments in Teams your pupils will be able to easily check when their assignments are due, you’ll be able to see who has viewed and completed their assignments, and you are both able to check on progress and feedback throughout. You will also only have to upload one copy of the file which can then be distributed to all pupils.

Here are some other things you could do:

• • In your class Team click on the ‘Assignments’ tab
  • Select ‘create new assignment’ and add your file
  • Add a date and a time for the assignment to be completed
  • You can view the progress of your students at any time by clicking on that specific assignment
  • Once pupils have submitted you can look at each one and return it to the pupil along with your feedback.

3. I’m an advanced Teams user

Once you have mastered ‘assignments’ in Teams, you may want to host a live lesson for your class. You can use the ‘meet now’ feature or you can schedule a meeting at a particular time. This may seem daunting at first but it is a great way for students to know lessons will carry on, with the expectation of everyone attending in a virtual classroom.

The first time I tried a live lesson, I turned off my camera before joining the live meeting and shared my desktop with the pupils. I was then able to take them through a PowerPoint presentation, work through a biology question in OneNote, and even show the pupils how to create a graph.

Offline, I have used my phone as a visualiser and uploaded the video to the files section in Teams so pupils can watch on demand at a time that suits them. This worked very well when pupils were unable to meet at the specific time. You may even want to record the live lesson so pupils can watch later.

Here are some other things you could do:

• • In the chat section, select ‘meet now’ (the small video camera button at the bottom of the page)
  • To schedule a meeting go to your calendar and select ‘new meeting’ then a specific time.
  • Once in the meeting the toolbar has various option (share desktop, record meeting and blur background, live captions and there is a chat panel for students to type questions)

Whether you are an experienced Teams user or not, there are a variety of options available to you to ensure learning doesn’t stop because you and your students cannot be at school. I have found these tools very beneficial in my science class and pupils have found them easy to use on a computer or on their phone.

I would recommend testing it out with students first if you can.  Have them join the Teams site and download the app to their phone so they can receive notifications. My students us the join code (generated in settings) to access the site initially and I task them with taking a photo of their work on their phone and uploading it to the site so I can check they are comfortable using it.

There is a wealth of resources available online to help with remote learning and the product teams are always on Twitter to help when needed, check them out using #msftedu and @DominicWillit

Find out more

4 tips to make the most of remote learning and deliver an uninterrupted student experience

Remote teaching and learning in Office 365 Education 

About the author

The post How to use Microsoft Teams for remote learning: tips for all abilities appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

If your organisation uses a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or Office 365 and Microsoft Teams, then you already have the tools available to deliver quality teaching and learning remotely.

Improve communication

Microsoft Teams provides the perfect platform for you to communicate effectively with your students. If you don’t already have a Teams site setup, it’s quick and easy. If you setup a Class Team, you will have the ability to set assignments via Teams. Teams allows peer-to-peer or teacher-to-student chat, collaboration, video calls, and online meetings. It stores chats and files securely and the search bar allows the user to quickly find what they need.

If you don’t have Microsoft Teams, then email could be used to enable communication with your students. Depending on your school, college, or university policy regarding teacher-to-student communications, you may also be able to post updates and links to students and/or parents using a social media platform.

Create remote and on-demand lessons

PowerPoint Recorder allows you to record audio, video, and digital ink over your PowerPoint presentations. These can then be published to Microsoft Stream or exported as a video to upload to another video hosting site. You can then use your chosen communication method to send these out to students or post them to Teams or VLE.

Learn more

Flipped instruction with PowerPoint Recorder

Encourage collaboration

In traditional classrooms, students would work together on documents, sometimes digitally but often on paper. When working remotely, Office 365 can provide the tools needed to enable students to work together collaboratively across a range of devices. It updates in real-time, meaning collaboration and feedback is instant.

Other tools you could use to allow your students to collaborate include Sway and OneNote. If you’re using a Class Team then you will already have a Class Notebook area. Class Notebook helps you be more organised with a personal workspace for every student, a content library for handouts, and a collaboration space for lessons and creative activities.

Visually striking digital stories can be created with Sway. These can also be built by a group of students via a collaboration link.

Learn more

Streamline efficiency with Office 365 apps

Digital Storytelling with Microsoft Sway

Getting Started with OneNote

Digital questioning and assessment

There are many tools you can use for questioning and assessment but depending on whether you’d like to review the understanding later, or get more creative, you could use Quizzes in Microsoft Forms or Flipgrid videos.

Flipgrid is quick and easy to set up, you create a Grid and Topics and share these with your students. Leave instructions and link resources on the topics, so students understand what they need to do. You can even create advanced rubrics for assessing your student’s contributions.

Microsoft Forms can be used to create multiple choice quizzes, which can then be added to Teams or shared with students to complete. You can view the summary of responses for the class or view individual student results. The form settings allow you to change whether the students can have multiple attempts and they’re quick to create and share.

Learn more

Flipgrid – Educators Getting Started Guide

Creating Authentic Assessments

Whichever selection of tools you choose to use, there is support available to help you transition from teaching in the class to teaching online. It may seem daunting at first but remember the first day you stepped into the classroom and how you felt then and this is no different to that, but now your classroom is virtual!

Find out more

4 tips to make the most of remote learning and deliver an uninterrupted student experience

About the author

Elaine has worked for over 10 years in education, delivering ICT qualifications and training in Further Education, Higher Education, community learning, and apprenticeships. She now works as a Senior Learning Technologist at the Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education. In the role, she helps more than 400 academic staff implement technology solutions in the classroom, as well as fully integrating Office 365 technologies into the work processes of support staff. As a MIE Expert and active member of the Microsoft Educator Community, Elaine drives the adoption of learning technologies throughout the Grimsby Institute and provides Microsoft Office Specialist training and support for staff development. Dedicated and passionate, Elaine recognises the growing need for digital capabilities within teaching, and believes that with the right support, technology creates better learning experiences.

The post Tools to support teachers with remote learning appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Whether you are planning to live-stream your lessons online through Microsoft Teams or record your them with the Recorder option in PowerPoint, the environment and location of where you deliver this from is important. When we set up a classroom, we always consider the environment that our pupils are going to be taught in and we strive to ensure that is it conducive to learning with engagement at its core.

Here are some practical tips to help you establish your remote learning area at home:

1. Set up the room

The location that you choose as your remote learning workspace is really important. Ideally, you need a clear environment that will enable you to be productive throughout the day. Try and find a room where doors can be closed to reduce background noise as much as possible. ASD pupils may find it difficult to focus on your voice if there are noise distractions so this is a crucial step to create an inclusive remote learning environment for all your students.

If you are going to be recording learning content, you need to make sure your room is well lit and that you have a good balance between both natural and electrical lighting. Test out different options before you start to record and make sure the video picture is clear for your students.

2. Test audio and video quality

Whilst devices have a mic built into them and it is often sufficient, it can always be improved with the help of an external microphone. From previous experience, I have found a headset microphone is the best at noise cancellation to minimise distractions from your lesson. If you are using a webcam, I’d recommend testing the quality and positioning of it before your lesson. You may need to use the external webcam if the quality of the internal one is poor.

3. Consider how you will deliver the lesson

If you are planning to record lessons via PowerPoint to ensure it can be accessible for your student at any time of the day, try and avoid sitting with your back to a window or wall that is full of distractions. The students need to be focused on you, not the things behind you.

For those of you who would prefer to use Microsoft Teams to live-stream your lessons, make sure you have uploaded all of the files to the Teams site prior to the lesson so you can easily show students where to find the work when you share your screen. I’d recommend trying to keep the video to screen sharing where possible to keep pupils focused on the work but if you do need to be on camera, make sure that background blur is enabled. This will ensure background distractions are minimised and is a reminder to your students on why the connection is taking place.

4. Set some ground rules

Make sure you set expectations with your pupils the same as you would in a classroom environment and familiarise yourself with how to mute pupils if they are interupting the lesson. Encourage students to ask questions through the chat panel. This way even your quieter students will be given a voice and everybody will have a chance to be heard. Just make sure you monitor it throughout the lesson.

On a more practical note, if there are other people at home, make sure they know you are delivering a lesson and ask them not to disturb you during it.

For many teachers this is a real step out of their comfort zone but we have these wonderful tools available to us, and our pupils, that can help us through a difficult time, whilst ensuring that every effort is made to help pupils achieve the best outcomes they can. And remember, there is a wonderful community of teachers available to help and support you during this time.

Find out more

Using PowerPoint recorder for your lessons 

Introduction to Microsoft Teams

4 tips to make the most of remote learning and deliver an uninterrupted student experience

About the author

Paul ‘Lanny’ Watkins is an IT/Computing Teacher at Ysgol Bae Baglan, a Microsoft Showcase School. He is a Microsoft Innovative Educator Fellow, Master Trainer, Skype Master Teacher and Flipgrid Student Voice Executive Board Member. Recently acknowledged in the 2020 EdTech 50, Paul is also a member of Welsh Government’s National Digital Learning Council.

The post How to set up a remote learning workspace in 4 easy steps appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Like many Trusts up and down the country, it has faced significant resource challenges, with ever-increasing demand on services and limited budgets.

But when it comes to organisational investment, the Trust’s community care services have become a key beneficiary.

The community team have long been stretched. Parts of the patient’s record were recorded manually, via spreadsheets. So the Trust decided to overhaul its legacy system – paper files and all. A new Electronic Patient Record System was put in for patients in the community via the EMIS Web platform system. This platform provides fast and secure online access to patient data while helping to integrate primary, community, and hospital care services.

Finding the right device to support mobile care

The next challenge was to equip community nurses with the right device. One that would enable flexible, mobile, and patient-centric working, while letting caregivers make the most of EMIS Web’s joined-up tools.

To inform its selection, the Trust engaged in a formal evaluation process.

First, mobile teams would need a practical device that was light, portable and extremely easy to use on the go. This meant laptops were largely disqualified. The right device must be discreet, and not intrude on the nurse-patient relationship. And for long, hard shifts an all-day battery life was a must.

The Trust also needed a single device system, which could be used across all applications to ensure resources are used to their full potential. And the IT team needed a secure device that could be managed remotely with ease – ideally, even configurable and wipeable remotely.

Another key requirement was ensuring access to the full range of tools. This disqualified a well-known competitor device because, although it would support EMIS Mobile – which provides a diary view for the next two days – it failed to support all Trust applications under their distinctive operating system platform.

In principle, Microsoft Surface Pro satisfied all of the community care team’s key requirements, including portability, usability, and compatibility with the full EMIS Web system.

But would it measure up in the field? To trial Surface Pro, selected users were given devices and asked to complete questionnaires. These included questions about weight, portability, screen display, usability, and battery life.

Team responses were evaluated and, with Surface Pro proving the best tool for the job, the Trust deployed 400+ devices to its community care workers.

Improving productivity

The community care team – newly empowered to provide higher-quality patient care with greater efficiency – has contributed to this positive story. And Surface Pro has played its part in helping them improve processes, productivity and care.

For example, staff now have rapid, secure access to all the patient records and team details they need, from appointments to shift rotas. Remote collaboration is easy. And, with real-time note-taking removing the need to write up notes at close of day, each nurse saves on time which can now be spent seeing patients.

Managing change: care teams and new tech

1. Check devices vs. systems. Make sure tech devices work across all the systems you’ll need and that the right software versions are in place.
2. Carry out a formal evaluation. Design and implement a phased evaluation process, and be sure to involve your staff in it. There’s no substitute for trailing candidate devices in the field.
3. Don’t stop training prematurely. Deploying tech is always a milestone, but ongoing training and support are equally important. Don’t underestimate the team’s training needs as Surface Pro becomes integrated into their daily work.
4. Keep it under review. What works for one team member may not work for another, so keep talking about new tech in relation to performance and process. Constantly evaluate success and be ready to manage practical adjustments for care teams.

Maximising The Impact Of UK Firstline Workers On Surface With Microsoft 365

Find out more

Empower employees and streamline operations

Connected care

About the author

Danish Jafri is the Community ICT Programme Manager and is responsible for deployment of Electronic Patient Records in the Community Services at Wye Valley Trust. With an MSc in Forensic Computing, he is a dynamic, commercially aware and highly skilled programme manager. He has a strong track-record in implementing large-scale IT infrastructure projects and systems of engagement that transform operational performance. He leads large teams of up to 100 and whole organisations through major systems implementation and organisational change projects whilst ensuring service, process, and operational improvement.

The post Managing digital transformation in community care appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.