Make Remote, In-Office, and Hybrid Work for Cybersecurity Teams

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:

• Remote, in-office, and hybrid work can each provide a benefit to the cybersecurity organization.
• By understanding how people think and work, leaders can develop an approach that maximizes the effectiveness of the cybersecurity organization.

The battle lines are drawn in organizations across America: Team Remote vs. Team Office! Between the lines of trenches and barbed wire lay the shell-pocked, no-man’s land called “Hybrid”. The two sides are entrenched. The battles are pitched.

Well, that’s the quandary facing Æðelmær Varano, the chief information security officer for Han and Belmonte, Inc.:

• Thanks to an already robust information technology (IT) infrastructure, Han and Belmonte navigated the COVID pandemic well.
• Since then, the company has wrestled with the right mix of remote and in-office time.
• Some leaders express concern with the lack of visibility on employee production. Others see benefits in productivity by eliminating commutes.

Company leadership has left it up to executives like Æðelmær to come up with the right mix for their organizations. So, the decision is his to make, but he must justify it. Here again, the Cyber Success Vector™, provides us a way to break the analysis down into first principles.

Pros and Cons

We begin again on the first tier of the x axis of the model: Core Professional Attributes. We’ll pick a sample.

First, how can Æðelmær maximize communication and candor.

• Much of our communication as a species is non-verbal. Things like facial expressions and voice inflection do not communicate well over media like chat and email.
• When working remotely, some employees may prefer the lack of “drive-by” interactions by being able to focus and deal with communications asynchronously.

Next, there’s resilience and endurance.

• The flexibility afforded by starting and scheduling work to afford some personal time in the day (e.g., meeting the kids at the bus stop or getting in a neighborhood walk) may reduce stress during remote work, increasing productivity and reducing turnover.
• For in-office work, some areas may have better traffic on certain days, reducing stress for in-office work.

Finally, there’s execution and results orientation.

• As a young second lieutenant in the Army, I learned the value of carrying a clipboard. I always looked busy. So, appearances of productivity can be deceiving.
• Tracking actual progress on issues, perhaps in tools like Jira, Asana, or ServiceNow, as well as mission-oriented metrics, are more objective “signs of life”. They're also better for communicating specific, measurable, actionable, and timebound (SMART) objectives.
• The virtual version of “management-by-walking-around” is scheduling short pulse checks with various staff and simply asking “How’s it going?” through messaging apps.
• Younger workers, raised on social media, may actually be more comfortable communicating through these media.

Æðelmær's Plan

Æðelmær took these and other attributes from the model into consideration

• He decided on a Tuesday and Thursday in-office schedule with all local personnel on site at the same time to maximize collaboration.
• A Wednesday in-office day was left to the discretion of subordinate managers based on the needs of the moment and the work models of their organizations.
• To maximize the benefit of in-person interaction, he instructed leaders to consolidate training, planning, and brainstorming meetings for in-office days.
• He also directed that leaders should strive for at least six hours of each Monday and Friday to be meeting-free.
• He enforced a “do-it, log-it” approach, where calls, meetings, and significant emails would be immediately annotated in their project or ticket-management system.

He'll have objective data on the productivity of individuals on remote days. All the while, the company could show actual return on investment on their facilities dollars for in-office days.

Æðelmær also retained the option to hire remote workers, but weighted whether they were local in the hiring decision. This way, he could tap into a larger talent pool, while still leveraging the synergistic benefits from face-to-face contact when the best talent was local.

Æðelmær's Follow-Up

Æðelmær takes seriously the effect his leadership has on his people’s lives. He knows each work hour is one that is subtracted from his people’s remaining lifespan.

• He socializes the plan with his subordinate leaders and frontline workers and publishes it...in writing.
• In six months, he’ll revisit the plan to see if tweaks are needed.
• While he doesn’t please everyone all the time, Æðelmær demonstrated empathy and concern for others which went a long way with his people.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you agree with Æðelmær’s approach?

UPDATE: Æðelmær eventually legally changed his name to Elmer so that it could be stored in ASCII rather than Unicode, thereby saving storage space. This is another example of unselfishness. What a guy!

All people, places, and situations in this article are fictitious. I made them up.

Read the other installments in this series at The Cyber Success Vector™ Article Series.

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