For employers looking to get the most out of their workforce, a revelation like this can help determine the makeup of teams, and even the layout of the office. If a business owner were to take this study?s findings to heart, they could go so far as to strategically arrange the office in such a way that the hardest workers are placed near employees who could, well, benefit by the shining example of their more dutiful peers. To give you an idea of how this works, here?s a summary of the study taken from the Harvard Business Review website: ?We saw that neighbors have a significant impact on an employee?s performance, and it can be either positive or negative. In terms of magnitude, we found that approximately ten percent of a worker?s performance spills over to her neighbors. Replacing an average performer with one who is twice as productive results in his or her neighboring workers increasing their own productivity by about ten percent, on average.? If this study has motivated you to pull up a spreadsheet of worker productivity and develop a new seating chart, then you?ll want to be careful to implement this in such a way that your well-intentioned plan doesn?t backfire on you. While the study highlights the possibility of a productivity boost by having workers at two different levels sit next to each other, it also mentions how the opposite can be true: the ?impact on an employee?s performance?… ?can be either positive or negative.? Essentially, the iron-sharpens-iron principle also means that a sharp worker can be made dull by a not-so-sharp worker. Therefore, you?ll want to consider additional factors besides just productivity when pairing up two employees, like a worker?s motivations (or the lack thereof). If a worker is inexperienced yet highly motivated, then sticking them next to a high performer will help show them what it takes to be productive and they?ll adjust their work habits accordingly. Alternatively, an unmotivated and obstinate worker won?t be impressed by their colleague?s work habits, and may even negatively influence their motivation and outlook on the company. In a lowest-common-denominator situation such as this, you would be better off isolating a motivated employee by providing them with their own office or cubicle, or even giving them the option to work remotely. Thinking along these lines, it may be more beneficial to view motivation as a primary organizing principle, seeing as an increase in productivity can?t happen without it. In fact, it stands to reason that a workforce made up of motivated employees will influence and challenge workers of all levels to reach for even higher levels of productivity. For your part, the more strategic you are about creating a work environment where influence is intentional, this will in turn enhance your bottom line. Finally, while this study pertains primarily to workers sitting next to each other in an office, we would like to point out that White Mountain IT Services can provide technology for your enterprise that can achieve the same goals. Tools like cloud-based collaboration software and communication solutions provided by VoIP have the potential to extend an employee’s influence well beyond their desk, allowing for your A-players to be in constant contact with several less productive team members, thus inspiring even more workers to try harder and do […]

This winds up costing the business in a few ways. First and foremost, what is the IT department really being paid for? Theoretically, an IT department is generally supposed to be spending their time planning methods for your business to innovate and improve; technical support services being a secondary responsibility. Under this system, the team is able to come up with solutions that better serve the company?s needs and allows it to advance and improve. If there is the occasional IT issue, they take steps to resolve it, but otherwise, their time is spent looking forward. In a perfect world, this could very well be the case, but this arrangement is exceptionally rare in reality. Try as they might to innovate, IT departments are too often interrupted by a service request or technical issue to maintain a purposeful stream of thought, often for an issue that can be resolved with a quick reboot. Meanwhile, time marches on, and the team is never available to prepare for changes and make the necessary upgrades. Ultimately, a business could quickly find itself behind the innovation curve, slipping further and further back in effectiveness. As a result, the IT department is called more often to patch up the symptoms of a greater problem, preventing them from solving that problem until serious operational deficiencies result. As is quite apparent, the tendency for an in-house team to be repeatedly pulled away from their work is simply unsustainable. However, hiring additional IT resources to compensate for the fluctuating needs of the rest of a staff is also unrealistic. White Mountain IT Services can offer a solution that rests comfortably between the two. We can resolve both your end user?s issues and relieve your IT department of their additional workload by offering our Help Desk services within your company. Taking responsibility for the day-to-day support requests, White Mountain IT Services can leave your internal team free to continue their innovative processes. As a result, your business will no longer have to choose sustainability over growth, and you will be once again capable of seeing your company move forward. If you?re sick of sacrificing your business for the sake of your business, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

How can social media use potentially compromise your business? Uneven data policies and defenses One concern comes from the data policies followed by social media companies, and the cyber defenses they’ve adopted to safeguard your information. To what extent can they guarantee privacy or confidentiality? How can they legally use your data, and how susceptible are they to a data breach? Furthermore, as discussed in a recent article from CIO Dive, companies can change their data policies or rules under a variety of circumstances, including mergers. Protections around your information might weaken. Employee oversharing Employees may carelessly share sensitive data on social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The information they publicize may include details about ideas still under development and ongoing deals that haven’t yet been made public. Your employees may also overestimate how much privacy they enjoy on social media accounts. They may wind up sharing various confidential details through what they assume are private messaging systems on these sites. Research material for cyber criminals Cyber criminals frequently rely on phishing and other types of impersonation to trick employees into disclosing sensitive data, ranging from Social Security numbers to salary information to customers’ addresses or emails. Impersonation can get carried out with a sophisticated and targeted approach. Instead of a relatively generic phishing email that can be deployed against numerous organizations, cyber criminals may focus on tricking you or some of your employees in particular. For example, they may send an email that sounds as if it’s coming from a colleague. This email may request certain sensitive documents, or it may contain a corrupted file attachment or link that infects your system with malware. To make the email sound more authentic, cyber criminals can use public sources, including social media, to research the individual they’re impersonating. They can find out all kinds of details about your business in general and about particular employees’ preferences, traits, habits, writing styles, and schedule. A similar kind of impersonation can occur over the phone. For example, if you report on social media that your company’s network is experiencing some downtime, perhaps you’ll receive a phone call from someone who claims to be a computer specialist. Addressing the dangers of impersonation and social media use Your business’s IT Policies should include rules and guidelines about social media use, including the following: The kinds of information employees are forbidden to share about your business on social media platforms, even in what they consider ‘private messages’ on their accounts. Stronger password habits (e.g. not using the same password for multiple accounts) and user authentication (e.g. the use of two-factor authentication). Mindfulness about the kind of information you and your employees disclose and the risks involved, both to themselves and to your business. Furthermore, your policies should spell out and enforce the use of stronger verification practices to lower the chances of a successful phishing attack or other impersonations. For example, if an employee receives an email requesting a sensitive financial document, maybe they’ll be required to first run the request by two additional employees before transmitting the information. Similarly, instead of providing details over the phone to someone who sounds like a computer support specialist, they’ll need to obtain additional verification. Certain kinds of information, like passwords, shouldn’t get sent via email or shared by phone […]

Encryption has become a very important part of maintaining an acceptable standard of security while browsing the web and storing data. Large enterprises and organizations have been using encryption for a long time, and even the average consumer uses encryption each and every time an online purchase is made. Did you know that the protection afforded users by encryption is made possible thanks to security certificates? Websites that have security certificates take advantage of HTTPS, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol with an S at the end for security. These certificates are used to provide security for a website?s visitor. Ordinarily, when a user plugs data into a form, like an email address or Social Security number, this data wouldn?t be protected while in transit. However, thanks to most organizations that collect this type of data now having security certificates on their websites, your data is safe. For examples of how HTTPS is used, look no further than banking websites or just about any online retailer like Amazon or eBay. A great way to describe online encryption is by comparing it to a pipe. With a normal HTTP connection, your data is traveling through a transparent pipe. Anyone looking at it from the outside can see that which flows through it. Hackers can spy on it and steal data while it?s moving from one location to the next. If you?re using an HTTPS connection, however, the pipe has more of an opaque tint to it. While you can still see the insides, it?s unclear what is traveling through it and very difficult to get a clear glimpse of it. This is why it?s so difficult for hackers to take advantage of encrypted data. They might have the data, but it?s often so jumbled and difficult to piece together that it?s not worth the effort, or impossible, to decipher it. While you can?t expect your employees to understand the finer details of how HTTPS works, you can expect them to understand online security best practices–especially those which pertain to keeping credentials like passwords and usernames secure. Make sure that your employees know not to input sensitive data into websites without first checking for these security identifiers. Make Sure It Has a Security CertificateBefore plugging in a password or sensitive credential to a website, make sure that it?s protected by a security certificate. To find out if it?s equipped with one, look for a green padlock icon that appears next to the URL?s name in the address bar. Granted, even if it has a security certificate, you want to check which type of encryption it?s using, as there is a significant difference between SSL and TLS. For example, SSL is vulnerable to threats like POODLE (a man-in-the-middle exploit), making TLS a more desirable protection. Be Wary of Suspicious URLs and DomainsHackers will often create fake sites that are designed to mimic a reputable organization?s own website, only it will be designed to harvest credentials. These sites might have misspellings in the domain name, or numbers in the place of letters to make it look as legitimate as possible. Before plugging in your credentials, make sure that you?re actually looking at the organization?s website. Be sure to check the domain and cross-reference it with the information that you have on file. For more […]

Vizio (which was acquired last year by LeEco) was fined by the Federal Trade Commission for collecting data on its users about what their televisions were displaying, down to the second! To make matters worse, this monitoring extended beyond the built-in smart TV apps. Literally, whatever the TV displayed, Vizio knows. We?re talking over the air broadcasts, cable set-top boxes, the TV?s IP addresses, even DVD players. The fine levied against Vizio by the FTC totaled $2.2 million. Plus, a federal court ordered Vizio to delete any data it collected before March of 2016. Prior to this date, Vizio TV owners were uninformed by the company of the data collection practice. Now, however, Vizio?s customers can find information on the company?s data sharing practices in the automated content recognition section of their TV?s settings menu. To help make amends, Vizio began sending users on-screen notifications on viewing data collection practices, a feature they initiated before the settlement was announced. Vizio General Counsel Jerry Huang said in a statement, ?Instead, as the complaint notes, the practices challenged by the government related only to the use of viewing data in the ‘aggregate’ to create summary reports measuring viewing audiences or behaviors. Today, the FTC has made clear that all smart TV makers should get people’s consent before collecting and sharing television viewing information and Vizio now is leading the way.? What was Vizio doing with all of this detailed data? In a best-case scenario, the company would use data on the product?s usage to better understand the resilience of its hardware (like how often the TV is turned on and off) so they can make improvements on future models. Although, it?s more likely that the collection of such detailed data was sold to partners for marketing purposes. Data collection practices like these make for a very lucrative industry, so it?s no stretch of the imagination to see how Vizio would want a piece of this pie. While the ethics of data collection can be debated, it?s clear that, in retrospect, Vizio would have been better off giving customers the option to opt in or opt out of its data collection practices. Does the revelation of Vizio?s actions make you think twice about how you use your own Internet-connected devices? Or have you let go of any semblance of privacy long before the FTC handed down this ruling? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.