Is Your Remote Work Ethic Compromising Company Confidentiality?

We’re not going to patronize you. We already know that you know about the benefits of remote working. It cuts costs, increases productivity, and blah, blah, blah… These are all fantastic benefits, but come on; you’ve heard them all, haven’t you?

Instead, then, we’re going to focus on a less favorable aspect of running a remote team. That is, the challenge of confidentiality. Even physical businesses operating in the same office have issues with this. What, then, are the chances for you and your remote team? You have no choice but to shout to each other across the ether. Surely there’s a pretty high risk that the wrong person will hear you?

Not necessarily. It’s true that slip-ups here would be easy. As with most things, though, staying on the straight and narrow is all about putting a plan in place. By acknowledging potential confidentiality downfalls, you can address them before they cause trouble. So, what are these potential problems, and what can you do about them?

Less control over colleagues

When your colleagues are in the office, you see everyone they come across. This allows you to stop the wrong people stumbling into confidential conversations. It also means you can step in if an employee looks about to slip up. When your team work from home, that isn’t an option. You won’t be able to control who walks in during private phone calls. You won’t even have any way to know what your colleagues say to friends and family members. But, hope is not lost. By being 100% clear about rules, you can still keep colleagues on the straight and narrow. Make sure they know never to leave their computers open. Ask them to keep office doors locked when private business is afoot. By threatening disciplinary action, you can bet they’ll do what you ask, even without your seeing it.


The need to share info across computers

In the office, you share confidential information in meeting rooms or face-to-face. When working with a remote team, however, you’ll have no choice but to send confidential stuff between computers. That could easily lead to security breaches. Unless, of course, you turn to apps like CloudMounter. By mounting cloud storages as local disks and allowing you to encrypt files therein, they’ll ensure the utmost privacy when sharing. That alone can keep delicate files safe, no matter how many computers you share them between.


The risk of delegation going doolally

In an office, you hand pick who deals with which projects. With remote work, that job becomes harder. It may be that you need to block specific information from team members who aren’t involved with projects. But, this is easier said than done. One slip could see the wrong eyes seeing that information. Though that seems a small issue, it’s still a breach which could lead to legal action. Make sure it doesn’t happen by turning to programs like Slack. This allows you to separate each project and therefore maintains confidentiality with ease.