itworldcanada.com
Employers are increasingly looking for ways to help employees with the impact of isolation as they continue to work apart. IT teams are playing a bigger role in coming up with solutions.
“The dialogue on business continuity dramatically changed in the last few months,” said Wayne Feyer, Principal Corporate Account Manager with Citrix Systems, at a recent ITWC virtual roundtable. “We have to design a new normal that keeps people in the centre of the discussion.”
Almost 20 IT leaders from western Canada took part in the discussion. A poll during the session showed that, prior to the COVID-19 crisis, 86 per cent of the participants’ organizations had less than 25 per cent of employees working from home. Now, in 64 per cent of their organizations, more than half of employees are working from home.
“It hit us hard how much it affected individuals,” said an Account Manager in a technology company. “There is a huge need to focus on the safety of people. There is a bigger opportunity for an ongoing partnership between HR and IT to take care of people.