How to Choose the Right Endpoint Management Solution to Protect Frontline Workers

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary for enterprises to secure their frontline employees from health-related concerns and secure worker’s systems and data from emerging cybersecurity threats. Apu Pavithran, the founder and CEO of Hexnode, discusses how unified endpoint management solutions help secure workers’ digital identities and sensitive business data and how to choose the right EMS for your business.

The next phase of CDC’s planned vaccine rollout will prepare a significant number of frontline workers of essential but non-healthcare-related industries to return to work in due course. Enterprises who have weathered the pandemic and are now strategizing ways to emerge into a “new normal” world filled with hand sanitizer dispensers and facemasks should be thinking about ways to bolster their frontline workforce even more so than they have in the past year.

Even before the pandemic disrupted operations worldwide, industry experts supported the digitization of frontline workers as integralOpens a new window to any enterprise-scale organization’s push towards further meaningful digital transformation. 

Keeping these workers safe from a data and cybersecurity standpoint should be front and center to your strategy to digitize your frontline workforce further. A unified endpoint management (UEM) solution will serve as the best option for such requirements. 

IoT Device Security is Key to Protecting Enterprise Networks

Hackers can hack into everything in your network – your security cameras, digital signage, your PoS system, the smart TV in the conference room, and even the smart fridge in the company break room. Why not get all your IoT-connected devices under one secure umbrella you use to manage your other endpoint devices? 

The benefits of securing IoT devices across your entire organization are that you have complete control over those devices, and your IT teams can manage them from one secure portal. Your frontline workforce will come to depend more upon IoT devices as they return to work from the pandemic and the digital transformation revolution continues. 

Ensuring the security of IoT devices protects your workers from personal data breaches and also protects your systems and devices from unauthorized access. There are many ways businesses can add value to their frontline workforce, and unified endpoint management software is one of them. By ensuring your most essential employees are safe from cyberattacks, data breaches, and malicious software, you will ensure consistent productivity and efficiency.

Learn More: Secure the Weak Points in Critical Infrastructure Environments Before It’s Too Late

Enterprises are adopting UEMs to Drive Digital Transformation

After the Obama administration launched its Upskill Initiative in 2015 to provide training and support to hourly ‘frontline’ workers and job seekers, the Institute for Corporate ProductivityOpens a new window (i4cp) and Deloitte, in partnership with The Aspen InstituteOpens a new window , conducted two seminal studies to measure the impact of workers with additional skills and resources on businesses.

The results were, by and large, positive and indicated that businesses who provide their frontline employees with things like access to new and emergent technology experienced growth. The pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the need for the digital transformation of the long-overlooked frontline workforce, but it appears managers are catching on. 

An emerging trend supporting this is that businesses with no prior experience of using endpoint management solutions are now looking to adopt the technology. This signals a move towards a near-universal adoption of UEM (Unified endpoint management) solutions- much like how everyone has antivirus software installed on their computer. 

However, that doesn’t mean enterprises will be necessarily equippedOpens a new window to detect and control threats on the devices they’re attempting to manage as they arise in real-time.

Learn More: 5 Reasons Why IoT Security Matters in Lockdown

How to Choose an Optimal Endpoint Management Solution for Your Business?

To have real control where needed, enterprises should adopt mobile device management (MDM) solution tailored to their business needs and modeled around the kind of work their frontline workers do. When selecting an MDM, managers need to ask themselves a series of questions about the solution’s utility for their frontline workers.

For instance: does the MDM I’m looking to apply to company devices provision devices? Does it configure to work networks automatically? Can it deploy apps and content automatically as needed? And will it push app updates once those critical apps are installed? Does my MDM offer remote assistance and compliance checks? And will it allow me to enforce compliance? 

As mentioned above, an emergent trend in the UEM/MDM world is that companies with no previous experience in these types of solutions are now beginning to push their versions of endpoint management software onto the market. Be wary of any new solution that isn’t tried and tested by similar enterprises in your sector.

Just like choosing antivirus software, the free or low-cost option of a mobile device management solution might not be right (or scalable) to fit your organization at the enterprise level. There are many options for choosing an MDM or UEM solution for your business – make sure the one you choose has your frontline employees’ success in mind.

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