Hi everyone and welcome to another Webroot Office Hours. This is where you can ask your COVID and Webroot related questions and we’ll do our best to answer them. 

This week @GeorgeA will be helping us answer your questions. 

We’ll get started in just a minute. 

Thanks! 

Thanks again to everyone that submitted a question!  

Will you continue to work from home after the pandemic is over? Ashley D.

Do you think work from home and other remote working practices are here to stay or will the be abandoned as soon as "safely possible"? Joe R.

Have you seen a loss of customers due to the pandemic? Ryan G. 

With remote working becoming an necessity for most business, how long did it take your business to adapt to ensure that a sound cyber resilience policy was put in place? Luis P. 

Do you foresee more working from home, or more going back to the office? We have noticed a trend where everyone at first spoke about working from home, and then slowly everyone has changed their mind and gone back to the office. Ethan K. 

What trends have you noticed in the cyber security industry since lockdown? Martin H. 

• Will you continue to work from home after the pandemic is over? Ashley D

Personally I really miss not meeting face to face and socializing with my work colleagues on a personal and a professional basis, so I will return to work. I again personally think people work better together in an office environment. Also many people’s WFH situations are less than ideal, something employers ignore at their peril.  We are  fundamentally social animals and that will not change. Does that mean I don’t appreciate the flexibility of working from home, of course not I appreciate it and have done so in the past.

• Do you think work from home and other remote working practices are here to stay or will they be abandoned as soon as "safely possible"? Joe R.

OpenText, our parent company, have already closed some of our smaller offices permanently and as long as WFH is the norm that’s fine. I do however think there will be a ‘price’ to pay by those who are not suited or satisfied with WFH  immediately looking for work where an office environment is available. So, some WFH is going to stay.

The real change is that companies  understand WFH is not a productivity disaster yet an they will need to give a choice, whereas in the past they ignored or subdued for control reasons giving that choice.

Work and life balance is also changing with this pandemic and I think eventually that balance will change the situation too. There are huge limitations of current digital collaboration and presence technology, and to employees these are becoming increasingly apparent. In the end, there  is no substitute for personal interactions’ and most people still want those they had at work. So abandoned on a permanent basis for most is my thinking.

• Have you seen a loss of customers due to the pandemic? Ryan G.

Yes, since we serve and focus upon the MSP/SMB market we have seen some loss of business as the MSPs who serve SMBs and those SMBs we deal with through the Channel are going out of business. We also have seen growth in certain areas too and we are trying to help all of our customers through these trying times.

• With remote working becoming a necessity for most business, how long did it take your business to adapt to ensure that a sound cyber resilience policy was put in place? Luis P. 

At Webroot it did not take us long as we already had the ability for staff to remote work in place. But with staff getting settled into the new ‘norm’ it took perhaps another 2-3 weeks.

• Do you foresee more working from home, or more going back to the office? We have noticed a trend where everyone at first spoke about working from home, and then slowly everyone has changed their mind and gone back to the office. Ethan K

I see there being a more flexible approach from employers and while some roles suit WFH many don’t. I know we like social interaction, that’s how we got to an office normal and it didn’t change post WW2 or through the last century, and the pandemic only changes that temporarily.

None of us ‘like living in a bubble’, that is not, nor will it become the social norm when the pandemic risk recedes. My only issue is it is still a little early (risky) to go back to the office unless you are 100% sure that your colleagues are being very careful and responsible in their other social interactions. Until the infection rates really go to almost zero there is risk, and I wouldn’t want to be the one giving COVID-19 out to anyone because I caught it but was asymptomatic. 

• What trends have you noticed in the cyber security industry since lockdown? Martin H. 

How quickly cyber-criminals and other malicious actors have been to exploit the WFH arrangements and how the volume of phishing and attacks generally has increased so dramatically this year.

And that about covers it! 

Thanks to @GeorgeA for spending some time with us today and answering everyone’s questions. 

If anyone has any additional questions, be sure to stop by next Tuesday, August 4 at 1:00 PM MT. or add your questions here and we’ll do our best to answer all of them.

Until next week, stay resilient!