Make sure staff working from home aren’t burned out, say CISOs
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Ironically, Palayoor added that the pandemic had been an enormous boost “from a team bonding standpoint.”
Bobby Singh, chief technology officer and chief information security officer for TMX Group, which runs the Toronto Stock Exchange, the TSX Venture Exchange and the Montreal Exchange, has shortened online conferences by five to 10 minutes, so his staff has a break between sessions.
For all employees, the organization sponsors online cooking classes, yoga classes and a games night for smaller teams.
“At least have a different environment,” Singh advised. “Be creative and think about something else besides work … You want to make sure people don’t get fatigued and demoralized.” Because TMX Group runs financial exchanges “we need people that are fresh … and don’t make mistakes.”
Moderator Laureen Smith, vice-president of worldwide alliances at Accellion, noted her CISO encourages staff to start a hobby to get away from thinking about work all the time. Generally, it’s been proven that remote working doesn’t affect productivity, she said. However, Smith also warned that after six months companies may be moving into “work from home fatigue.”
“It’s becoming a marathon of meetings every day,” said Mike Melo, CISO of medical diagnostics service LifeLabs. Fortunately, he said, not only has management been accomodating employees have access to a third-party counselling service.
Adopting their organizations to work from home hasn’t been too hard for these leaders. By coincidence, shortly before the pandemic erupted LifeLabs purchased a secure access service edge (SASE) solution from Netskope to allow for secure remote private access. That lead to the creation of a Zero Trust VPN model, limiting employee access to only the applications they need.
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