In the past two months, companies everywhere have shifted their workforces from office cubicles and conference rooms to home offices and dining room tables. The coronavirus pandemic’s thunderous impact – bolstered by government mandates to maintain social distancing protocols and shut down non-essential workplaces – has forced companies to pivot hard and fast to a new reality, whether they’re ready for it or not.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic so far, it’s that existential threats don’t just go away. Not even if you ignore them. (Actually, they get worse if you ignore them.) We’ve all been touched by the events of the past few months and we need a new way forward. Whether it’s climate change or public health, we need to face these threats head-on and solve them.
In a drastic worldwide attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, one third of the global population is now experiencing some form of lockdown. For the millions of Americans who have filed for unemployment over the last few weeks, there is nothing to do but wait. But for those on the frontline, time has never felt so limited. As hospitals around the world face buckling under the pressure of wave after wave of new patients, increasing the capacity of our healthcare systems has become our priority.
I’m into my third week of working from home and I’m starting to feel it. My back is playing up, my neck and shoulders are tight, and my legs are getting increasingly more restless. My make-shift remote work setup consists of a little desk and a dining table chair. Not exactly the ergonomic home office setup the health and safety department would recommend. Everyone is working under different circumstances, but we all want to be as productive as we can.
One day you’re grabbing your to-go latte, responding to Slack messages on your subway commute, and arriving at work to find a coworker waiting by your desk with a broken computer… and the next, you find yourself at home, sipping on plain old drip coffee while making huge decisions about remote work that will affect your entire organization – all with only a day’s notice.
“Shadow IT” can be a divisive subject depending on how long you’ve been in the IT field. There is a legacy attitude within many IT teams that shadow IT must be controlled – but it can bring significant benefits to an organization. Modern IT teams understand these benefits, and focus on balancing shadow IT’s value and risk. Moving past that legacy attitude and developing a modern IT mentality in your organization can be difficult.
