With technological advancements, remote working has gained momentum, especially after the covid-19 pandemic. The work is now moving out of the workplace premises and into the remote work setting.

The impact of this transition is two-fold. On the one side, it brings a lot of benefits including comfort, ease, commute-free life, increased savings, and improved work-life balance whereas, on the other hand, it comes with a unique set of challenges that must be considered properly to enjoy the flexibility it provides.

The New Work of work survey states that the biggest challenge in remote working is employee collaboration, motivation, and engagement. In this scenario, Mobile Device Management (MDM) software emerges as a powerful solution to manage employees working remotely. This article discusses the challenges of remote working with an emphasis on the role of MDM software in addressing those issues.

Productivity Issues

In the remote work setting, employees easily get distracted by other activities and personal tasks that seem more interesting than the assigned task that they must complete at the end of the day.

The common reason behind this problem is the absence of a professional atmosphere. This eventually leads to missed deadlines and a decrease in productivity. The MDM software can deal with this issue by monitoring the device and app usage and setting compliance standards.

In case employees spend excessive time on unnecessary web pages or apps, an alert would be generated. In addition, MDM software can also limit access to unauthorized or non-work-related web pages or apps during working hours to ensure that workers are focused on their tasks.

Technical Faults

Another important issue faced by remote workers is managing technical failures. It becomes quite difficult for employees to handle technical interruptions that might include software malfunction, internet connection problems, and other misconfigurations.

This adversely affects the performance of employees by wasting their time and losing confidence and motivation. In such a situation, an MDM solution can play a vital role by providing remote control features.

This allows employees to cast their screen using MDM functionality that enables administrators to access the screen of employees’ devices and fix the issue by providing commands in real-time.

Data Security

Another important challenge in the remote working environment is maintaining the security of data. In this scenario, employees mostly use their personal mobile devices for performing business operations that put the security of corporate data at stake. It is since employees’ devices are not as secure as corporate devices which makes them vulnerable to numerous security attacks.

The employees install multiple apps and access numerous web pages that might not be secure and contains malware which puts corporate security at risk. To address this challenge, the MDM software allows the admin to enforce policies related to passcode, data remote wipe, and device encryption. 

Moreover, using an MDM solution, admins can easily detect malicious activities and unauthorized access by setting a compliance standard; thereby providing an additional layer of security.

Device Management

It is another important challenge that requires proper consideration as in remote work setting numerous devices with different apps, OS, and configurations connect to the corporate network.

Therefore, managing such a variety of devices is cumbersome for IT teams. The MDM solution simplifies this task by providing a unified centralized console to monitor and manage mobile devices.

The IT admins can automate tasks including app installation, installing updates and security patches, and configuring policies depending on the group to which the employee belongs. Apart from this, the MDM solution also provides real-time tracking and monitoring of devices to ensure that the device is secure and up to date.

Communication

Collaboration among remote teams is extremely challenging due to the lack of face-to-face interactions. This brings several issues regarding miscommunications and poor team dynamics, thereby making employees disregarded and disconnected from the organization.

These factors negatively impact the loyalty, motivation, engagement, and trust of workers in organizations. To deal with these issues, MDM software can provide a viable solution. It provides a centralized platform for communication and can integrate tools like zoom and slack to foster a better culture for interaction.

Apart from this, MDM software offers real-time access to shared documents and files so that team members can work collaboratively on a project regardless of their location.