Member Article

UK’s Leading Blue-Chip Organisations Discuss the Implications of Employee Home Working for Their Businesses

Last month, IT practitioners from some of the world’s leading IT organisations took part in the second virtual meeting of The Value Exchange [TVeX], an established cross industry “vendor free” peer to peer community. Under the Chatham House Rule, members came together with a spirit of co-operation to share common pain points and experiences, concerning the common challenges of accommodating a material uptick in home or remote working.

Brad Day, co-founder of innovative London-based tech firm, CloudStratex, welcomed around 35 IT thought leaders and practitioners from UK companies spanning Financial Services, Government, Retail, Publishing and Manufacturing.

Agenda topics included, technology options, security and HR related implications of the move to increases in home working. TVeX members not only discussed how technology compliments new ways of working, but also how to ensure employees have everything they need to do their jobs, without an escalation in costs. Measuring employee productivity, the avoidance of device sprawl, and ensuring a consistent user experience were some of the additional topics mentioned during this pragmatic discussion.

Other key discussion points included:

• What impact will the new way of working have on organisations real estate portfolio and the knock-on impacts for technology? • How will home workers be reimbursed and for which technology? • How do organisations start to provide secure remote working without the need for solutions such as VPN • The use case for power platform apps and automation • Secure external file sharing including ad hoc sharing

In reviewing the insights delivered through the peer-to-peer discussion, Brad Day said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused much uncertainty and forced change in the business community and that is why it is vital organisations work together to share successful IT operating practices and thought leadership. Therefore, it is heartening to see the TVeX community help its fellow members traverse tough economic conditions and a difficult environment”.

By providing the framework for a mutually beneficial support and knowledge transfer network, TVeX creates a forum for attendees to learn from one another, avoid mistakes and overcome knowledge gaps in a collaborative environment. This has a knock-on effect of driving technological efficiencies which will in turn, make UK industries more cost effective and competitive.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Ford .