如果再次面临危机，IT领导者会做哪些不同的事情？

在我们启动新的一年之际，新冠肺炎大流行使包括我在内的许多企业领导者反思，如果我们面临另一场难以想象的全球危机，下次我们会怎么做。

在2020年初，这场大流行迫使世界各地的公司重新思考他们的现代实践，并确定如何加速采用技术，以实现远程工作等新流程。在结束了动荡的一年，以及第一波新冠肺炎之后，许多企业领导者承认他们可能在哪里出了问题。

在虚拟工作站软件的创造者和我的雇主Teradici的 "工作与场所的分离 "研究中，发现了来自64个国家的近700名决策者和经理人的见解，他们听取了第一波的教训。

面对最初难以理解的商业环境，经理们从研究和探索新的技术解决方案，到快速测试和部署应用程序，使他们的团队能够在虚拟工作环境中继续开展业务。事实上，75%的研究受访者在其组织中使用远程桌面，但在许多情况下，这些桌面并没有在全公司范围内部署。

研究还发现，大多数组织计划将其IT投资增加100%以上。对于设计和创意领域的公司，如科技、媒体和娱乐业等雇佣了许多艺术家、动画师或一般的权力使用者，他们表示将把IT投资增加200%以上。

值得注意的是，三分之二的受访者表示，如果有一天遇到类似事件，他们会做出不同的反应。

以下是企业领导者如果重新面对危机，他们会用三种方式来应对向远程办公的转变。

1. 准备好硬件，提前了解组织的可用设备； 当停产和在家工作（WFH）任务开始生效时，企业领导人意识到办公室的工作站并不容易转移到WFH环境中。他们很快就意识到，他们需要更好的设备清单，以支持他们的员工在虚拟环境中工作。

三分之一的受访者不得不购买额外的硬件，同样数量的受访者不得不建立VPN以实现对公司网络的远程访问。

此外，研究还发现，35%的受访者对将员工送回家后的安全操作水平不满意，这为整体搬迁又增加了一层复杂性。

如果可以再来一次，领导们会确保他们已经仔细审视了他们所拥有的硬件，确保他们的员工工作站在需要之前就已经安装了远程主机卡或远程软件，以帮助在时间紧缺、小型IT团队争分夺秒地同时支持所有人的情况下，更快、更顺利地实现过渡。

当然，这种挑战并非传统组织所独有。当大学开始遭受流行病瘫痪时--学生和教师被禁止进入教室和校园--他们需要一种方法来扩展学习解决方案。例如，许多机构为虚拟学习添加了社交学习平台Piazza等工具，而像温哥华电影学院这样的技术型机构则必须为学生提供快速访问工作站，以模拟他们在校园实验室中使用的大功率台式机和应用程序。

2. 为远程工作者提供新的和再利用的客户端设备。

即使是老旧的笔记本电脑，在紧要关头也可以储存起来，重新利用。根据调查，一位受访者甚至表示，他们能够使用原本计划丢弃的笔记本电脑。借助云计算的力量和实施正确软件的能力，他们可以迅速将这些机器变成高性能的工作站。

但并不是所有的公司都在同一条船上。例如，专门从事视觉效果、动画和游戏开发的组织涉及图形密集型应用和巨大的计算能力。他们需要能够操作和编辑数百千兆字节的信息，有时甚至是PB级的信息。由于多个艺术家需要能够在一个项目上同时工作，这些公司也倚重技术，从客户端设备，到利用云和软件，使他们能够像在办公室一样远程工作。

3. 对员工进行培训，以适应未来的远程工作。对许多人来说，这可能是一条学习曲线。

这并不奇怪，许多多年来一直被束缚在工作桌面上的工人都感觉到了转向远程环境的压力；从如何平衡家庭和工作生活的优先级，到如何从办公室数据中心访问他们所需的文件，或者确保他们可以使用他们工作所需的应用程序等更多技术方面的问题。

随着现在越来越多的公司在第一波大流行后接受远程工作，他们已经了解到，作为日常运营的一部分，对用户进行软件和公司关于协作和安全合规要求的政策培训，对顺利过渡有极大的帮助。对常规设备甚至远程桌面上的工作人员进行额外的培训，也可以在紧要关头减少IT团队的整体工作量。

结论。IT的经验教训

在吸取了过去一年的诸多教训后，IT领袖们从第一次危机中变得更加精明，他们不仅学会了如何应对下一次危机，还学会了如何将远程工作应用等新技术融入到日常的长期运营中。

在争先恐后地从家里调走和管理工人的过程中，许多公司甚至发现，远程工作和其他技术应用以意想不到的方式使他们受益。在某些情况下，成本降低了，甚至许多公司的招聘工作也得到了改善，因为他们的新IT模式允许他们向全球其他地区的人才或自由职业者发出邀请。另一些公司则发现，由于工人花在通勤上的时间和精力减少了，而花在项目上的时间增多了，因此生产率也随之提高。难怪有越来越多的公司转向永久或混合远程工作模式。

原文题目：What IT Leaders Would Do Differently if Faced With Another Crisis

原文：As we launch into a new year, the COVID-19 pandemic has made many business leaders, me included, reflect on what we'd do next time if we were faced with another unthinkable global crisis.

In the early part of 2020, the pandemic forced companies around the world to rethink their modern practices and determine how to accelerate the adoption of technologies that would enable new processes like remote work. After closing out on a tumultuous year, and the first wave of COVID-19, many business leaders admit where they may have gone wrong.

As uncovered in "The Separation of Work and Place" study by Teradici, creator of virtual workstation software and my employer, are insights from nearly 700 decision-makers and managers from companies based in 64 countries who heeded the lessons taught by the first wave.

Confronted initially by an unfathomable business climate, managers went from researching and exploring new technology solutions, to rapid testing and the deployment of applications that would quickly allow their teams to continue business in virtual work environments. In fact, 75 percent of the study respondents were using remote desktops in their organizations, but in many cases, these were not deployed company wide.

The study also found that most organizations plan to increase their IT investment by more than 100 percent. For companies in the design and creative space with a number of artists, animators or general power-users employed, like tech and media and entertainment, they stated they would increase their IT investment by more than 200 percent.

Notably, two-thirds of respondents said that if ever confronted by a similar event, they would respond differently.

Following are three ways that businesses leaders would approach a shift to remote work if they were faced with the crisis all over again:

1. Prepare hardware and know what the organization has available in advance

When the shutdown occurred and work-from-home (WFH) mandates went into effect, business leaders realized the office workstations were not all easily transferable to a WFH setting. They soon learned they needed a better inventory of the equipment that was necessary to support their workforce in a virtual setting.

One-third of respondents had to procure additional hardware, and the same number had to set up a VPN to enable remote access to their corporate networks.

Additionally, the study found that 35 percent of respondents were not comfortable with the level of security they were operating with after sending their employees home, which added another layer of complexity to the move overall.

If they could do it again, leaders would ensure that they had taken a closer look at the hardware they do have, ensure that their employee workstations have remote host cards or remoting software installed even before they are needed to help facilitate a quicker, smoother transition when time is in short supply and small IT teams are scrambling to support everyone at once.

This challenge, of course, was not exclusive to traditional organizations. When universities began to suffer pandemic paralysis -- with students and teachers barred from classrooms and campus -- they needed a way to extend learning solutions. For example, many institutions added tools like social learning platform Piazza for virtual learning, and technically-immersed institutions like Vancouver Film School had to provide its students quick access workstations that emulated the high-powered desktops and applications they would use in the labs on campus.

2. Provide new and repurposed client devices to remote workers

Even older laptops can be stored and repurposed for this in a pinch. According to the survey, one respondent even said they were able to use laptops that they had planned to discard. With the power of the cloud and ability to implement the right software, they could quickly turn these machines into high-performance workstations.

But not all companies were in the same boat. Organizations specializing in visual effects, animation and game development for example, involve graphics-intensive applications and immense computing power. They need the ability to manipulate and edit hundreds of gigabytes of information, sometimes petabytes. With multiple artists requiring the ability to work simultaneously on a project, these firms also leaned on technology from client devices, to leveraging the cloud and software that would enable them to work remotely as if they were in the office.

3. Train employees for a remote work future. It can be a learning curve for many.

It's no surprise that many workers who had been tethered to their work desktop for years were feeling the strain of shifting to a remote setting; from how to balance home and work life priorities, to the more technical side of how to access the files they needed from their office data center, or ensuring they could use the applications they needed to do their jobs.

As more companies now embrace remote work following the first wave of the pandemic, they've learned that training users on the software and the company policies regarding collaboration and security compliance requirements as part of day-to-day operations can be incredibly helpful in making a smooth transition. The added training for workers on regular devices, or even remote desktops, can also reduce the overall workload for IT teams in a crunch.

Conclusion: IT Lessons Learned

Having learned so many lessons from the past year, IT leaders have emerged savvier from the first crisis, not just about weathering the next crisis, but also about incorporating new technologies, such as remote-work applications, into their permanent, day-to-day operations.

During the scramble to move and manage workers from home, many companies even discovered that remote work and other tech applications benefitted them in unforeseen ways. In some cases, costs were reduced, and even recruiting improved for many companies as their new IT models allowed them to extend offers to talent or freelancers in other regions around the world. Others discovered that productivity climbed as workers spent less time and energy commuting, and more time on projects. It is no wonder there is a growing list of companies moving to a permanent or a hybrid remote work model.