Reduced freedom of movement is one of the negative effects of the coronavirus. The impacts of Covid-19 affect both corporations and individuals. People have started negotiating and implementing better ways to work from home while retaining some form of life balance. 

For organizations with work from home staff, rules and operating processes must be put in place to ensure that everyone remains on the same page.

With this in mind, what is the best way to work from home? How can employers establish the best work from home rules for their employees and how can those staff implement WFH best practices that will enable them to make most out of their remote work?

In this blog, we will explore some guidelines that will help companies set up an acceptable and comprehensive WFH policy and offer tips to assist people who are working from home to establish their best WFH setup.

WFH Cybersecurity Best Practices 

1. Create a Start-up Routine

   We will start this work from home best practices with some essential guidelines to work from home effectively. Everyone who is working remotely needs to create the right balance when and where they work and create boundaries between their personal and professional lives. Create a daily habit or set of actions that clearly showcase that you are ready to start your working activities. This may be something like prepping your WFH office space, eating a distraction-free meal or dressing up in your designated work from home outfit. In the long run, this will set up a natural rhythm within you and this will kick-start you for productive work.
   
   

2. Establish Boundaries

   While others may use the home space with you, it’s ideal to set boundaries that let your partners, kids or pets know that you are in the office and you don’t want to be disturbed. 
   
   

3. Keep Regular Hours 

   It is important for IT security experts who focus on solving WFH cybersecurity threats to establish strategies for when to start and stop working each day. Issues may arise because of demanding deadlines, customers in different time zones and many other factors. To make necessary arrangements, your scheduled working days must have some degree of flexibility. Therefore, if you are forced to start early or late, you may need to reduce working time or extend your working hours to create a balance. Try to figure out the time of the day you are most productive and reserve this time to carry out essential tasks.
   
   

4. Have a Reliable Work Space

   If you are unable to set aside a separate office in your house, you can designate a particular area of the home as your workplace. Your employer may offer dedicated equipment such as a mobile phone and laptop, which must be used mainly for business purposes. You should create a separation between business applications, personal files and data storage.
   
   

5. Take Scheduled Breaks

   If you work for an organization that has some rules for break times, you must follow them. If you are self-employed or a freelancer, set aside a period to allow yourself to rest and stay away from your phone and computer screen. For full-time employees, two 15-minute breaks and a lunch hour every day are standard. Therefore, you must take this as a starting point.
   
   

6. Use Online Resources

   Internet connectivity is the heart of working from home culture and the mobile and web networks offer a lot of opportunities for gaining access to valuable knowledge, tools and opportunities to communicate. Whether it is research data, training materials, virtual happy hour or video conferences, you must use the internet to make your voice known, trade information and improve your prospects.
   
   

7. Guard Your Data and Privacy

   Whether you are connected to a mobile network or wireless that you don’t have control over, you can use a VPN connection. Some employers have their personal VPNs for internal use by members of the company, which requires remote workers to access some particular websites or servers that store organization information. 
   
   

8. Set Standards for Internal Communications

   The policy must include standards and acceptable practices for internal communication channels so as to avoid employees being distracted by continuous streams of texts, messages or email.
   
   

9. Telecommuting Policy Best Practices

   For staff, remote work or telecommuting policy offers a formal structure for implementing and managing remote work. In a situation where the corporate office is the main working place before the Covid-19 pandemic, a WFH policy document also states the steps employers and employees must follow so as to apply for and approve work from home privileges.
   
   

10. Establish Help Desk and Tech Support Protocols

    It’s good to set out the formal channels that will help and support requests. It’s also essential to specify when and how your workers can contact the IT team and other support services.
    
    

11. Set Clear Event and Meeting Schedules

    The policy must include a perfect medium for communicating times, dates and essential details of important events and meetings. This may take the form of a centralized calendar with video conferencing links. 
    
    

12. Accept Feedback and Enhance the Policy

    Ask for feedback and input concerning the policies in place, make updates when necessary and communicate all stakeholder changes. 
    
    

13. Establish and Implement Security Standards

    Create a culture of security awareness and always confirm that all employees have the latest versions of the essential security or encryption software loaded on their devices. 

If you need a cybersecurity tool that can make your remote work effective and protect you from WFH cybercrime, then choose Vicarius. Vicarius is a vulnerability management software that targets cybersecurity officers as well as IT managers and operators from the U.S. market.