Over 80% of UK firms adopted hybrid working by February 2022, but their technology and security struggled to cope with the switch. 

Both the Private and Public Sectors are struggling with the transition, and while flexible working is attractive, it can hamper collaboration and the technological advancements that attract and retain talent. 

To understand the hybrid working landscape, Apogee polled 100 IT directors/managers in small and midsize businesses and 100 IT directors/managers in the public sector.

Private Sector

According to the research. nearly two thirds of IT directors in the private sectors are not very confident in their company’s ability to fully support a hybrid workforce. Even so, 71% of companies are not placing IT investment as a top priority. 

Furthermore, hybrid working may be affecting quality of work: 89% said that the system is preventing effective collaboration, and nearly half said that remote staff don’t have nearly the same access to solutions as office workers. 

While the opportunity to work flexibility is a high priority among the workforce, the ability to collaborate effectively with technology was the top priority of survey respondents. 

For solutions, the survey found that companies were more likely to look to cloud technology to combat this rather than remote management and collaboration solutions. 

Security is also a major concern for hybrid work environments: 25% of respondents identify these as challenges affecting IT transformation. 

Despite this, securing the hybrid workforce is low on the to-do list, with only 14% of companies stating it as a priority. 

But companies should be concerned: 29% of directors say they only audit their IT estate between once a month and once every 4-6 months, creating massive vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks. 

Further, 64% of respondents are not confident in their IT estate’s ability to meet compliance requirements, making hybrid working even more of a liability.

Adding to security concerns is a lack of endpoint security and device encryption throughout the private sector. 

Concerningly, companies are just not looking ahead: Only 19% have an end-of-life plan for their devices to improve security and only 30% are planning on implementing a policy in the future.

Public Sector 

Similar to the Private Sector, 74% of IT directors are not very confident in the IT estate being able to support hybrid working, and 69% are not placing this as their top priority. 

93% have found this to prevent effective collaboration, and 42% of staff working remotely don’t have the same access to solutions as office workers. 

Public sector employees placed the importance of flexible working on par with the ability to collaborate effectively with technology. Cloud technology again was the main technology given focus by the public sector.

21% of public sector businesses found security and productivity challenges as a result of hybrid working, but securing this workforce was low on their priority list. 

When using sharing solutions, 28% of directors reported employees fear a cyber breach, meaning security is likely not up to standard with increasing cyber threats. 

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Auditing the IT estate is more regular in the public sector than in the private, but 18% of companies still only audit their estate between once a month and once every 4-6 months. 

Similar security risks permeate, however: 35% of organisations have endpoint security, and 31% have device encryption.

Less than 15% have an end of life plan for their devices, with only 20% intending to adopt such a plan. 

Over two thirds (67%) of public sector organisations are not confident their IT estates will meet compliance requirements, which could lead to fines from regulatory bodies and reduce productivity. 

Ultimately, the skills shortage is likely playing a dual role in the calamity of hybrid working: a lack of skilled technologists will delay updating old systems and securing hybrid devices, but a lack of progress in these areas will make it difficult to retain and attract the talent necessary to drive technology forward. 

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