Tag: working from home

10 expert tips on how to homeschool children while working from home

With almost half of English secondary schools sending children home to self-isolate last month[1], many parents will once again have to balance homeschooling while still doing their own work.

So how do you balance home education and working from home? Oxford Home Schooling, one of the UK’s leading home education providers, has given its ten top tips on how to do just that.

1. Don’t worry about recreating the full school day

When they’re at school, children aren’t learning from the second they arrive until the hometime bell – they walk between lessons, have breaks and spend time settling into classrooms. So don’t worry about making them work non-stop from 9 to 3:30. One-to-one teaching is more efficient than normal group lessons anyway, so even a couple of hours can be really valuable, and these can fit in around your work.

2. Make use of online resources

A great way to keep your child engaged is to utilise the amazing variety of resources available online. Too much screen time is unhealthy, but technology definitely has a place. The BBC, for example, has recently launched an incredible array of educational content on BBC Bitesize and your child can work through the exercises on their own.

3. Encourage independent learning

This is most relevant for older children, but you simply won’t be able to get your own work done if you are supervising your child all day. Whether you invest in workbooks or make use of content their school sent home with them, find some tasks that your child can complete independently. Check-in occasionally, but trust them to get on with it. This helps with self-sufficiency and time management, while also giving you the opportunity to work.

4. Be in the moment

Quality not quantity is the way forward. When helping your child, you need to be completely focused and in the moment, not answering emails at the same time or checking your phone. Give your child your undivided attention and then you’ll both get the most out of that time. Otherwise you’ll spend longer having to re-explain tasks and answering questions.

5. Help them communicate with their friends

There’s more to school than just work and your child will undoubtedly be missing their friends and the social side of normal life. So help them reconnect by setting up video calls. They can catch up, have a laugh and chat about how they’re finding everything, all while you’re being productive.

6. Share responsibilities

This might not be possible in all households, but if there is more than one person capable of overseeing the homeschooling, take it in turns. Split the day up between you so you each have a few dedicated hours where you can get your own work done.

7. Be flexible

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that there’s no strict time schedule, so there’s nothing forcing you to teach your child during normal school hours. If you work 9-5, maybe teach them for an hour at 8am and then do a couple of hours after you’ve finished. Or perhaps do a couple of hours at lunch and push your work back slightly if possible.

8. Talk to other parents

There are millions of parents in the same boat as you so chat to each other and compare notes. See what’s working for them and share tips on how to make the most out of the situation. They may even be able to virtually supervise your child for a while, before you repay the favour.

9. Make lists

Make a to-do list every day of the things you want to achieve before you go to bed, both homeschooling tasks and your own work. This helps you prioritise throughout the day and ensures you at least get the most important things done for both you and your child.

10. Play to your child’s strengths

Your child is more likely to keep themselves entertained if they are good at the task they are doing. So when setting independent activities, tailor them to their strengths, whether that’s reading, writing or drawing.

Dr Nick Smith, Director at Oxford Home Schooling, said: “Homeschooling is still a relatively new experience for many families and, while the routine will certainly take some getting used to, there are lots of benefits and hopefully our tips show that parents don’t need to sacrifice their own work to help their children learn.”

For more advice on how to get the most out of homeschooling, visit: 

https://www.oxfordhomeschooling.co.uk/revision-techniques/improve-memory-concentration/

Staying mentally healthy while working from home

12 tips from SAMH

Working from home, especially during extended periods can be difficult to adjust to. For many of us, it means learning how to manage our different areas of work under new circumstances.

While we all experience and learn to adapt to new situations and environments differently, there are some challenges that we are all facing.

We’ve put together some top tips on how to get the most out of working from home while looking after yourself and your mental health.

  1. Create your morning routine

Create a morning routine that brings you up until the moment you begin work for the day. It may sound trivial, but this helps you mentally prepare for the day ahead and get into the “I’m going to work” mindset.

You probably have a routine when you get to work, so creating a routine at home is also a good idea.

It could be making a cup of coffee. It might be returning home after a jog, or doing some mindfulness sessions. It could be getting dressed (although it may be tempting to stay in your pyjamas, it may not be the best look for those video conference calls!).

Whatever it is, setting yourself up for the day can improve your state of mind and psychologically prepare you to start work.

Why not try mindfulness or meditation to get your morning started: Headspace – Weathering the Storm.

2. Establish boundaries

It is easy to lose track of time when working from home, so set a schedule, and stick to it…where you can.

Having clear guidelines for when to start work and when to call it a day helps maintain your life-work balance. Aim to start and finish at your normal working times.

We know that those in self-isolation, who have childcare or other caring responsibilities, may need to be more flexible in the times they might work. For example, you may need to switch to some evening work so you can spend time with children during the day. Speak to your line manager about agreeing a new temporary work schedule.

3. Create your own workspace

Although it’s tempting to head to your sofa with a laptop, you’re may find setting up a work area helps you stay focused. If you can, try to set aside a specific area or space where you can work. If you don’t have a desk, use a table or worktop.

Besides making you feel like you’re at an “office,” this helps you maintain good posture, avoid distractions, and mentally leave your work behind at the end of the day. The NHS advice is that you should adjust your chair so you can use the keyboard with your wrists and forearms straight and level with the floor.

4. Set ground rules with the people you share your space with

There might be other people in your home during these exceptional times. They may be working from home too or self-isolating. You may all need to share a limited amount of space so it’s important to set some ground rules. For example, when you need access to a certain area of your home; or designated times for ‘quiet time’.

Working with limited childcare options

With schools and nurseries closed, you may find yourself needing to come up with new routines not only for your working life, but within your personal life for your children or siblings. Talk to your employer or manager about potential flexible working opportunites at your place of work. You may want to consider the following:

  • Are the children old enough so you can still continue to work?
  • Can someone supervise the children some of the time?
  • Can you alter your working times?
  • Do I want to consider using some annual leave to spend time with children?

If children are at home, then try set some ground rules. Have clear rules about what they can and cannot do during that time, when they can come and speak to you and when you need left alone.

We also know that many schools have reminded parents not to set unrealistic expectations or goals.  Its important parents take time to look after themselves too. If you are social care staff or co-parent with someone classed as a key worker, your children may still be able to go to school. Follow the Government’s most up to date advice.

5. Take breaks

Remember to take normal breaks, including your lunch break. Get up and move about, go for a short walk or make a coffee. Try setting a timer or alarm on your computer screen or mobile phone to remind you to take a break.

6. Connect with colleagues

Loneliness, disconnect, and isolation are common problems in remote work life, especially in the current uncertain and worrying situation. Making the effort to speak to your colleagues regularly can make a difference.

Conference calls, Zoom, Skype, and Microsoft Teams are all examples of how you can keep connected. Try to pick up the phone for a real conversation rather than relying on email or instant messaging all day. Video calls in particular can help you still feel connected to your colleagues.

7. Get some fresh air when you can

For those who need to self-isolate, opening the window may help you get as much fresh air as possible. Try to choose a spot with lot of natural light to work if you can.

Follow Government advice and do some exercise outside, even a short walk can benefit you both mentally and physically. Make sure to keep a distance from others when outside and be sure to wash your hands as soon as you return home.

8. Drink plenty of water

People get dehydrated when they sit, and if you’re heating is still on in your home, then you’ll need the extra water to keep yourself physically and mentally healthy.

To ensure that you are consuming a sufficient amount of water, keep bottles of water handy to make sure you drink your recommended 1.5-2 litres per day. You can also download apps on smartphone or tablet to remind you to drink regularly.

9. Stand up and stretch

Sitting all day isn’t healthy even if you’re at the office, but working from home means you skip your commute and have fewer reasons to get up from your chair throughout the day.

If it’s possible in the area you have set up for home working, try standing up to do your work for a change of pace. Standing uses more muscles and burns more calories than sitting and it’s good for your back and posture.

If you can’t stand and work, stretching is vital for maintaining good posture, especially when working at a desk for several hours a day.  Try standing up every 30 minutes or so to stretch your chest and extend your spine to reverse the hunched position of sitting. 

Standing and stretching can also help to reduce back and neck pain. Here are some suggestions to help you move and be mindful: a

10. Listen to music

If you find working from home to be a little too quiet, you miss the buzz of the office and find it difficult to focus, listen to music, turn on the radio, or put the TV on quietly in the background

11. End your day with a routine

Just like you should start your day with a routine, create a habit that signals the close of the workday. You might have a simple routine such as shutting down your computer and turning on a favourite podcast, or writing the next day’s to-do list.

Whatever you choose, do it consistently to mark the end of working hours. Put your work away or shut your laptop so you know you are back in your personal home time and place.

12. Reflect on your mental health

Ensure you take time to reflect on and try to be mindful of your mental health. Look out for changes in your feelings, practice self-care and be aware of any triggers or symptoms surrounding your mental health.

Make sure you keep in touch with support networks, even a text, phone call or video chat can make a difference.

For more ways to protect your mental health during these challenging times, check out our online information hub:  www.samh.org.uk/coronavirus.

Research finds female employees hardest hit by pandemic and working from home

A review of research in organizational and workplace psychology conducted by an international team of academics has revealed the implications of working-from-home for women has been more disruptive.

The review paper, entitled COVID-19 and the Workplace: Implications, Issues, and Insights for Future Research and Action and originally published in American Psychologist, features urgent insight from UCL School of Management Professor, Sunny Lee into the sex- and gender-related implications of changes in work practices that have taken place over the course of 2020.

The review of research indicates the impact of the pandemic differs by demographic characteristics, such as gender. The paper reveals two key implications on the workplace; the first that work-from- home models will increase and continue post-pandemic and the second that although men are more likely to face direct health threats from COVID-19, women are more likely to be affected by the adverse social and economic costs.

Working from home is here to stay

The authors of the paper believe that face-to-face working will reemerge post-pandemic but will most likely return in a hybrid form which mixes face-to-face work with virtual work. Prior research has suggested that hybrid forms of working such as this are effective in increasing employees’ productivity, satisfaction, and psychological wellbeing.[1] And even with the option to work on an entirely remote basis, employees may choose to come to office regularly given humans’ strong social motives to connect with others.

Although working-from-home has turned out to increase productivity for some workers, it does also come with downsides. For example, research shows some workers are being burned out as they have to juggle caring for their children or other family members while working from home, whilst some employees feel distress and loneliness as they struggle with blurring work/non-work boundaries and miss out on social opportunities.

Given that working-from-home is likely to increase in the years which follow the COVID-19 pandemic, the negative consequences of such models will continue unless addressed. The review paper found gender and sex to be an influential moderating factor.

WFH more disruptive for women than men

Prior research has shown that in households where two partners are employed, women typically engage in household tasks more than men. And during national lockdowns and the closure of schools, the burden of household tasks tends to increase for couples with children as they become compelled to assist with children’s virtual learning.

Therefore, although working-from-home may increase overall productivity among employees, work may be substantially more disrupted for women, particularly those who have children. Indeed, a recent research (Feng & Savani, 2020) study showed that during the pandemic, among couples who are both employed, women’s productivity was more disrupted and women felt more dissatisfied with their job.

Additionally, the research showed due to their empathy and communal orientation, women, compared to men, may feel more isolated and stressed by working from home. A recent survey on 996 U.K. healthcare workers found that more females are experiencing emotional distress amid the pandemic (IPPR, 2020).

Sunny Lee, one of the paper’s authors and an Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the UCL School of Management, said: “The research has shown that the work-from-home model has been a success for many companies forced to close their offices during the pandemic.

“However, we can see on a day to day basis the pressure this is putting on women to find a balance in their productivity and home life and this something organisations need to be sensitive to if this model is here to stay.

“Interestingly, one of the emerging trends we observed was the success of female leaders in handling this crisis, with leaders such as Jacinda Arden, Angela Merkel and Tsa Ing-Wen able to flourish in these uncertain environments.

“Going into 2021 organisations need to be aware of creating the right environment, one which is sensitive to the needs of both men and women, so that everyone’s skills are able to flourish during times of uncertainty.”

Managers are much more positive about flexible working and staff working from home, says new study

Managers are much more positive about their staff working from home and working flexibly since lockdown says a new study undertaken jointly by the Equal Parenting Project at the University of Birmingham and the Work Autonomy, Flexibility and Work-Life Balance at the University of Kent.

The report titled ‘Managing Employees during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Flexible working and the future of work’ is based on a UK wide survey with managers which aimed to understand the organisational perspective on managing homeworking since the UK COVID-19 lockdown.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, many organisations have been forced to move the majority of their workforce to remote working, often at very short notice. In many cases these businesses had previously discouraged flexible working and had very little infrastructure in place to support these new ways of working. The question arises, what impact did this shift to homeworking have and what does this mean for the future of work?

To answer this question, the research team undertook a survey of managers between the 24th July to 11th August 2020. The sample consisted of managers from across the UK, an array of industries and all levels of management.

In total, 742 managers completed the survey which involved questions around norms for working from home, attitudes toward working from home, trust, key learning experience what tools the organisation supplied to employees to enable them to work from home and what support was made available to the employees.

As the first academic piece of research exploring managerial experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, this research discovered that 54.7% of managers reported over 80% of their employees have been working from home since lockdown.

As a result of their management experiences during lockdown, fewer managers now believe that presenteeism and long working hours are essential to career progression within organisations.

Many managers also reported that working from home increases productivity, concentration, and motivation due to their experiences in lockdown. 58.6% of managers surveyed said that working from home increases productivity whereas only 44.1% agreed with this statement before lockdown.

However, managers also saw some draw backs, with 58.7% of all those surveyed saying that working from home lead to isolation, and other citing issues around blurring of boundaries as key negative outcomes.

Regardless, most managers now believe working from home will become much more commonplace in the future, with more jobs, including senior roles, being advertised as being available for flexible working and more support being made available for home working.

Commenting on the report Dr Holly Birkett, Co-Director of the Equal Parenting Project at the University of Birmingham said: “The report shows managers are much more positive about working from home and flexible working, than they were before the pandemic. 

“Managers say their organisations are going to be more supportive of homeworking and flexible working in the future, including more likely to support working from home, job shares and part time working even for Senior roles. 

“This change along with the breakdown of the presenteeism culture and the removal of a flexibility stigma, which existed before COVID -19, could help improve employee wellbeing, help to support people to take on caring roles and break down many of the barriers women face to balancing career and family, with the potential to improve female representation on Boards and close the gender pay gap.”

Overall, the data included in the report has shown that working from home has been commonplace since the initial lockdown and managers have faced a steep learning curve regarding how to manage remote teams often with very little support or guidance.

Despite this, managers have been pleasantly surprised about the results with their teams generally performing really well during this time. While there have been some performance issues these were generally where this was already an issue prior to lockdown.

Dr Sarah Forbes, Co-Director of the Equal Parenting Project said: “Due to positive experiences of working from home and with flexible working patterns amongst their staff, managers are keen to support more working from home and flexible working in the future.

“This could take the form of better flexible working policies and tools to facilitate this as well as training being readily available for managers to learn how to better support remote workers in their team. However, we also need to understand working remotely over long periods of time can also be very isolating and that some people much prefer working in an office environment.”

Dr Heejung Chung, Principal Investigator of the Work Autonomy, Flexibility and Work-Life Balance Project at the University of Kent said: “As we have also seen in our previous employee survey, the flexible working genie is out of the bottle – more workers want to work flexibly in the future, and as this report has shown, managers now see how flexible working can benefit companies.

“However, that shift will not be the same for all companies and for all workers. Government policies to help make that cultural shift, by introducing stronger rights to flexible working and better protection against discrimination for flexible workers may help this transition go smoothly after the COVID-19 lockdown measures end.”

The full findings and wider recommendation of the report will be announced by Dr Sarah Forbes, Dr Holly Birkett and Dr Heejung Chung at a webinar on 26th November 2020 which has been organised by the Lloyds Banking Group Centre for Responsible Business at the University of Birmingham.

The webinar will also have presentations by Lauren Adams, HR Director at CBI , Daisy Hooper, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at CMI, and Anthony Fitzpatrick, Employee Relations and Global Employment Policy Lead at Aviva will deliver organisational and managers’ perspectives on experiences of remote working during the pandemic and how these experiences are likely to change the future of work.

Mental health “perfect storm” will affect millions this Winter

A “perfect storm” of mental health stresses is being created with lockdowns, economic anxiety, enforced social distancing, poor weather and isolation – meaning millions of home workers will suffer in silence this Winter.

The UK is possibly facing its biggest ever mental health crisis since the WWII this Winter as a combination of many factors will contribute to the low mood and poor mental health of millions of employees working from home.

According to the ONS (Office of National Statistics) 69% of adults in the UK are staying that Coronavirus is having a negative effect on their life and the drill down statistics are even worse:

  • 63% are worrying about the future
  • 56% are feeling stressed or anxious
  • 49% are bored

“The worrying thing is everyone is in the same boat – we are so busy fighting our own fires – many of us don’t have the time or energy to help others”, says Jonathan Ratcliffe from office company Offices.co.uk.

“People are having a rotten time of it at the moment, and this Winter will be a real crunch point for many”.

Critical stress factors this Winter include:

Lockdowns – working from home and seeing less family/friends mean increasingly isolated lives

Uncertainty – Worries over employment and the economy creating a feeling of anxiousness

Poor Weather – Less daylight, poor weather means less opportunity to leave the house for fresh air and exercise

“The big worry for myself and my colleagues is either a new National lockdown, or the schools will close, because this will tip the balance for many people working from home and just managing to keep things on an even keel”, says Jonathan Ratcliffe

Offices.co.uk offers these general pointers to those working from home and feeling the pressure:

Routine – it’s vital if you want to be motivated that you set a routine. Make sure you get up at a decent time and start work at 9am.

To do list – Start by writing a small list of work to achieve, lower your expectations and work towards ticking all those goals even if they are small.

Talk to someone – If you have a work buddy, you’d usually chew the fat with, why change? Give them a call, maybe first thing – helps you both realise you are not alone.

Food and drink – Make sure you eat properly and stay hydrated throughout the day.

Fresh air – At lunch time take a walk or sit outside, put your phone down, look around and enjoy the peace and quiet.

Finish at 5 – Don’t be tempted to work into the evening, try and finish up around the same time as you would normally.

Put the phone down – After “work” is over, try to forget about it. Enjoy time with a partner or family.

Wine O’clock – It’s tempting to hit the wine each night, we’re under stress. But you didn’t booze like this before, time to reduce intake and get a good sleep.

Sleep – Decent bedtime and try and get 8 hours solid sleep if possible.

Plan for the other side – This will end, we simply don’t know when yet, and when it does you need to be in the best shape possible to seize any opportunities. Get planning!

“Bosses need to be very aware that their remote staff might be struggling, and while they have their own pressures, they need to reach out and monitor staff daily to make sure any issues can be addressed – being sensitive and caring is upmost for employers this Winter period”, concludes Jonathan Ratcliffe from Offices.co.uk

Follow Scottish Government guidelines on Working From Home, says STUC

As the UK Government embarks on a massive push back to work campaign, the STUC is urging employers and workers in Scotland to follow Scottish Government guidelines.

Roz Foyer, STUC General Secretary said: “The UK’s government’s plan to drive people back into their offices are adding even more confusion to an already shambolic Coronavirus response.

“In Scotland, we have taken a different track and are still in Stage 3 of the route map out of lockdown. It’s highly dangerous for the UK Government to be pressuring workers who don’t have to be based there back into the workplace and it needs to be made clear to all Scottish workers that this is not in line with public health guidance here in Scotland.

“Many offices, particularly call centres, are potential Coronavirus hot beds. Employers and Governments should be ensuring that they’re doing everything they can to assist workers to work effectively from home, until we can be confident that the virus has been sufficiently suppressed. We also need to keep the pressure off our public transport systems as far as possible at this key time.

“We understand that working from home can have its own challenges for workers and there are economic impacts on city centres, but continuing this where viable is still one of the best things we can do to prevent an autumn/winter spike in Coronavirus cases.

“Nothing could be more damaging for our economy than a second lockdown, which is why we must continue to show caution and restraint in the business of reopening our economy.

“The UK Government should be standing firmly in agreement with the Scottish Government that if you can work from home, you should work from home.”

Is going back to the office a good idea?

ISG research reveals workplace preferences depending on personality types 

– For 55% of the UK office workers having plenty of natural light is the main workplace priority

– Edinburgh, London, and Birmingham office workers have the highest workplace satisfaction in the UK

To help businesses and employees navigate uncertainty over the future of workplace, ISG paired up with a clinical trainee psychologist to develop a personality test that reveals workplace preferences based on people’s character traits.

As restrictions slowly ease and businesses resume, both employers and employees face the question about the future of workplace. ISG, a global construction specialist, conducted a survey of 5,779 office workers in the UK, Germany, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia to better understand the power of workplace prior to the lockdown.

The survey indicated that plenty of natural light (55%), plenty of fresh air (48%) and being able to work from home or outside of the workplace (45%) came on top as the main employee priorities for UK workers. 

In terms of the regional split, employees working in Edinburgh tend to have the highest satisfaction about their workplace conditions (63%), followed by London (55%) and Birmingham (53%). However, employees working in Cardiff are least satisfied by their workplace with only 37% confirming so.

Taking into account the research findings, ISG collaborated with Hannah Baker, a trainee clinical psychologist, to discover ways in which employees’ personality traits can be indicators of their preferences for office or remote working.

By using the Big Five personality theory as the foundation, the test outlines ten statements that are based on five main dimensions of an individual’s personality – extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, stress and openness to experience.

Respondents are asked if they agree with the statements and depending on the number of positive responses they are sorted in three workplace personality types available on https://www.isgltd.com/en/campaigns/workplace-personality-types. 

Hannah Baker, a trainee clinical psychologist, said: “When considering your workspace, it is important to remember that all people respond to their environments differently.

“It can be helpful to think about where your motivation comes from – some people are motivated internally, while others respond to external factors. Also, understanding how other people impact your work can help.

“Individuals who are more introverted might find thinking independently in a quiet space most helpful. Extroverts, however, might prefer a busy office space, where they can exchange ideas and information with others.”

To find out more about the research and access the workplace personality test, please visit https://www.isgltd.com/en/campaigns/workplace-personality-types.

Six in ten nervous about returning to work following lockdown

‘We are personally urging CEO’s to review their thought processes and empower their staff to work from which ever location makes them feel safest and most comfortable’ says Ruari Fairbairns

A nationwide YouGov survey, commissioned by One Year No Beer, has revealed that 60% of the UK workers who are no longer travelling to their usual place of work and now working from home  are nervous about returning to work following lockdown.

The survey also identified that women surveyed appear to be considerably more nervous with 70% of them opening up about their fears of returning to the workplace, opposed to 49% of men.

 61% of 18-34 workers who are not currently in their usual place of work agreed that they were nervous about returning and surprisingly fears were lowest amongst those aged 55 years and over.

Geographically, Midlands came out on top with 72% of all workers no longer travelling to their usual place of work nervous about returning to work, and those most relaxed about getting back to old routines were workers residing in the South (51%).

Whether people had children in their household or not seemed to have little impact on their attitudes towards returning to work with 63% of those with children in the household  opening up to anxiety around returning to the workplace, compared to 60% of those with no children in their household.

Ruari Fairbairns, founder and CEO of One Year No Beer, comments, “As the CEO of a company that operates its entire workforce remotely, I’m not sure why there is such a sense of urgency from employers to get their staff back into the work place, especially if they still feel so uncomfortable returning to work at this stage of the pandemics lifecycle.

 “With so much access to technology and productivity software, there is no need to be sitting in an office with each other right now (or ever) and the flexibility and freedom that working from home affords, by far outweighs any benefits of working in an office.

“We are personally urging CEO’s to review their thought processes and empower their staff to work from which ever location makes them feel safest and most comfortable.”

The same survey also revealed that nearly three-quarters of UK drinkers were drinking the same (45%) or more (29%) during lockdown, leaving only 25% drinking less. 18% believed they would emerge from lockdown drinking more than they did pre-lockdown.

Fairbairns continues, “I think a lot of people will have formed habits during this time they wouldn’t have before, and some may be challenging to shake.

“In hard times it’s easy to let things creep in that you wouldn’t normally do and if people are anxious about returning to work, the concern here is that they will start to lean more so on alcohol as a coping mechanism.”

Passionate about transforming the world’s relationship with alcohol and helping people, ‘Live Life Better’ One Year No Beer is a digital network, which has been designed to transform behaviour and support mental health.

Fairbairns concludes: “At One Year No Beer we focus on the habit-changing process, rather than just deleting alcohol from your life.

“We’ll help you break down and rebuild new habits as well as develop a new mindset that gives you complete control, something that will last way past finishing your challenge.”

For more information visit https://www.oneyearnobeer.com/

Protect your passwords, protect your business

Businesses and projects in Edinburgh are being advised to put in place stricter rules around passwords to protect staff and systems, as the country switches to home-working amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Following UK Government advice for businesses to work from home where possible, due to the rise in cases of COVID-19, the Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) is warning employers how this can increase an organisation’s vulnerability to cyber-attacks.

This was demonstrated just weeks into the COVID-19 outbreak, with scammers already capitalising on fear and system frailties, and scams relating to the virus costing UK businesses nearly £970,000.

SBRC is advising businesses to quickly and easily increase their security by using password manager software and implementing a two-factor authentication.

Declan Doyle, Ethical Hacking Consultant at SBRC, said: “We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of phishing scams since the outbreak of the virus – including fraudulent emails targeting businesses about fake Government tax rebates and Coronavirus funding.

“Criminals are very smart, and as much as we can find, identify and shut down scams, the best course of action is to tell people what to look out for and give them advice to follow to minimise the risk of falling victim to these traps. Increasing your online security is one way to do this.”

Eamonn Keane, Chief Operating Officer for Cyber and Innovation at SBRC, said: “The last thing any business battling the impact of coronavirus needs right now is a crippling cyber-attack.

“The prospect of thousands of temporary home workers, potentially accessing a range of vital business servers and applications from vulnerable home internet connections, or using old or inadequate laptops or PCs, is a scary one.

“One of the easiest ways for businesses to avoid cyber-attacks is to set up a password manager to secure, store and generate passwords for your team which can be accessed across various devices.

“Attackers use different techniques beyond hacking to discover passwords, including phishing, automated guessing using the most commonly-used passwords, manual guessing and intercepting networks. Password managers and two-factor authentication can easily put a stop to a lot of these tactics.”

Andy Maclaren, Head of IT Services at SBRC partner, Consider IT, said: “Password managers typically generate a long, secure and unique password for each website a user logs into, avoiding reusing passwords across different websites.

“This way, if a particular website’s database is hacked or leaked, attackers won’t be able to use the same log in details to access all of the other services your email address has signed up to.”

Two-factor authentication asks users for their password as normal, but also asks users to provide a second piece of information such as a code sent to an email address, or a fingerprint scan on a phone.

Eamonn added: “Two-factor authentication is just another way of ‘double-checking’ you are who you’re claiming to be when you’re logging into business accounts – meaning even if someone hacks or gains access to your password, they won’t necessarily be able to access your accounts.

“At SBRC, we endeavour to maintain Scotland’s reputation as a safe place to do business, so we will do everything we can to keep our partners, members and the public as up to date as possible in these uncertain and ever-changing times.”

The Scottish Business Resilience Centre is a non-profit organisation which exists to support and help protect Scottish Businesses.

To ensure Scotland remains a safe place to live, work and do business, SBRC will be regularly sharing COVID-19 developments and advice from Scottish Government, their partners and members as they happen.

Over the coming weeks SBRC will be holding a series of 60-minute webinars aimed at helping Scottish businesses prepare and survive the human and commercial impacts of COVID-19.

SBRC maintains a unique connection to Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and Scottish Government, which gives the organisation exclusive access to the latest information to advise citizens and businesses how to interact safely.

Employers can also reach SBRC by emailing enquiries@sbrcentre.co.uk.