BEI Blog

We wish IT security was as simple as setting up a good firewall and installing an antivirus. We talk a lot about security solutions that cover a lot of your bases, such as our Unified Threat Management (UTM) system. While these enterprise-level solutions are important, any investment in protecting your network can be upended by a single act of user error.

You see, the bad guys are clever, and they wouldn’t be building malware and stealing data if it wasn’t lucrative, and the successful hackers are very good at beating the system. A huge trend that has been growing for years involve hackers doing more than just infecting computers the old-fashioned way; today they are targeting people using tactics like social engineering and offline infiltration. They know that they can get access to your network by asking the right user the right questions over the phone or via email. They know how to get just enough information to sound somewhat legitimate, too.

Get Everyone on Board
It’s up to you to establish a IT security mindset with your employees. It starts with management and needs to trickle down across the entire organization. Getting other C-levels closely looped in, and then office managers and even HR is a good way to make sure everything is being taken seriously.

Show That Security Isn’t Meant to Be a Burden
If you fire off new processes like two-factor authentication or push policies to employees phones without rallying them first, you’ll likely get moans, groans, and pushback. It will feel like you are making their jobs harder, when in reality you are actually protecting them and the organization. Instead, it’s a good idea to teach your people WHY security matters to them. Good employees want what’s best for the company and will see value in protecting the company if they understand that these new security processes aren’t designed to be roadblocks.

Have Regular IT Security Check-Ins
Whether you put together a weekly email or hold a monthly meeting, stick to it. If you make security enough of a priority that you don’t postpone a piece of your plan, your staff will feel the importance of it. Plus, this allows you to take smaller steps that ensure good habits are being put in place.

Reinforce Diplomatically
Until IT security mindfulness is achieved, the responsibility is on you to make sure your staff understands the new processes and procedures. This may include thoroughly documenting your security best practices, including it in the employee handbook, creating training videos, and hanging posters. Plus, as security threats and compliances evolve over time, so won’t some of your processes. As things change, you’ll need to update your materials.

After most of your staff seems to “get it,” you can establish the repercussions for failing to comply with company rules. Remember that most practices can be easily remediated - depending on the severity of the issue, a first-time offender probably doesn’t need to lose their job. That said, treating repeat offenses and blatant disregard for IT security should be dealt with swiftly and corrected. One weak link can do harm to the entire chain.

Encourage Issue Reporting and Support Requests
One of the biggest tools you can equip your people with is the ability to put in support requests and report on anything suspicious. If they don’t feel comfortable and encouraged to put in support requests, they might not raise their hand when something really serious is happening. This can be caused from either not wanting to bother management with something that seems unimportant, or from having a fear that they will get in trouble for potentially causing an issue. It’s critical that you establish a clear value to reporting issues and mistakes that happen.

That’s where BEI comes in. We can not only help you establish the infrastructure to protect your business, but we can help enforce, audit, and support your organization. We can act as your in-house IT department and field employee support questions. Let us help you protect your business from the ever-increasing number of online and offline threats. Give us a call at (844) BIZ-EDGE today and have a chat with one of our IT security experts.

While the hope is that the office will be a haven of productivity and collaboration, it is also a prime breeding ground for huge amounts of stress. While different people may react differently to stress, it ultimately will hold a business back if left unchecked. In this blog, we’ll explore different kinds of stress, and how you can reduce it in your business.

Why We Feel Stress
Stress is the body’s natural response to unideal situations, its way of preparing to either fight or take flight. During the times of our development, this instinct undoubtedly saved many of our ancestors, but in modern times, this survival tool is somewhat mismatched with the office environment. What’s worse, experts now acknowledge a third response to stress that is particularly detrimental to success in a productivity-focused work environment. This third response is called dysregulation, but more commonly known as freezing up.

While each of these responses had their use at one point, none of them will help the stressed individual today remove themselves from the cause of their stress (or their stressor). Furthermore, the brain sees stress as stress, no matter what causes it. Therefore, physical stress can easily have adverse effects on one’s mental state, and emotional stress can seem physically exhausting.

The Types of Stress, and Where They Come From
The workplace is often notorious for being a stress-filled environment for assorted reasons. The company culture, the workload, and the experience of being in the office itself can compound with the personality and tendencies of each employee to generate stress in different ways. There are plenty of different stressors that can be mixed, as well. They include:

• Physical Stressors - As their name suggests, these are environmental conditions that cause some physical duress, in this way generating stress. Some examples include irritating noises, the presence of an unpleasant or hazardous substance, or even uncomfortable ergonomics.
• Social Stressors - These stressors come from any interpersonal concerns that can cause friction, especially when spending extended periods of time in each other’s company or from an abuse of one’s actual or perceived authority over another. This can be caused by a supervisor abusing their influence, a coworker overstepping boundaries, harassment taking place, or even a client or customer acting poorly.
• Traumatic Stressors - As their name suggests, these stressors are those caused by some event that created mental, emotional, and quite possibly physical pain. Disastrous events are often the root cause of these, but a work-related disaster can have the same effect.
• Career Stressors - Careers are generally stressful things, with no shortage of circumstances that can create a negative experience for a worker. These include a perceived lack of job security, a sense of self-underachievement, or simply a lack of opportunity in their given role. Other stressors can also be tied closely to career influences.
  • Task Stressors - The responsibilities a worker has can contribute to their stress, whether they are being pressured to complete them, simply have too many on their plate, are frequently pulled away to do other things, or are either overqualified or underqualified to do them.
  • Role Stressors - An employee’s given role is often a source of some stress. If their professional role and their role at home clash, they can be stressed, as they can if their role in the office isn’t explicitly clear.
  • Schedule Stressors - Inconsistent and variable work hours, extended and uninterrupted sessions, and long hours spent working overtime are all notorious sources of work-related stress due to scheduling.
  • Organizational Change Stressors - Change isn’t always a welcome thing, especially when there was some sense of comfort before the changes were made. Therefore, when new technology is introduced, companies begin to merge, or there are whispers of downsizing, the workplace can become much more stressful - and this additional stress can bleed into the other kinds of work-related stressors, exacerbating them.

One or more of these stressors could very likely be causing each member of your business some degree of distress, likely affecting their well-being, general wellness, and performance in a negative way. However, there are things that you can do within your company to help reduce the stress generated by work procedures, increasing employee happiness and maintaining their productivity.

Mitigating Stresses
Fortunately, relieving your office of some of its tension doesn’t require huge projects and grand, sweeping changes. Just encouraging your employees to move around more can create noticeable benefits, as their pent-up stress has an outlet to be worked out through, so support them in walking around during breaks. In addition to the exercise, you may find that your employees may grow closer to their coworkers.

Communicating more clearly with your team about goals and expectations will help to ease tension as well. Plus, by shaping your messages to your staff to be more positively charged and empowering, you not only encourage them to complete their tasks, but also to take pride in what they produce.

You shouldn’t be afraid to have a little fun in the office, either. Showing appreciation by hosting company lunches and allowing your employees to bring in their pets on certain days eases up on some of the tension in the office. Even something as small as switching entirely to decaf coffee in the break room after lunch can make people less stressed and stimulated in the afternoon.

However, some stress may need some major changes made to effectively remedy it - but you may find that these changes can also benefit your business in other ways. For example, reexamine the meetings that are being held, as well as who is sitting in as an attendee. Are there employees spending valuable time on repetitive, ultimately redundant meetings instead of accomplishing the goals you have established for them? Eliminating these meetings and providing your employees with the tools they need to successfully reach the goals you’ve set for them will keep productivity moving forward, as well as streamline communications to take place among those who need to be in-the-know.

Of course, we also did mention how stress can be caused by the introduction of new technology, but that is mostly if this technology is introduced without warning. Introducing new technology can also help relieve the stress that outdated systems and problematic “solutions” create.

That’s where we come in. At BEI, one of our specialties is to equip businesses like yours with solutions that make their responsibilities easier to fulfill. Want to find out more about what we can do for you and your employees? Call (844) BIZ-EDGE today.