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Professional Support Lawyer Johnny Shearman comments in Governance & Compliance Magazine on whether the benefits of tech-enabled remote working, such as Zoom, are being undermined by the threats to compliance.

Johnny’s comments were published in Governance & Compliance Magazine’s August Issue.

“A big feature of the COVID-19 lockdown has been the increased use of conferencing technology such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The massive uptake in the technology, for both work and home use, has improved the lives of many in challenging times for both the individual and the organisation…

Johnny Shearman, a professional support lawyer at UK firm Signature Litigation says video conferencing technology has enabled service-based businesses to continue to an extent during the period of lockdown experienced in the UK and across the globe. “Taking the legal industry as an example, the civil courts were quick to move to remote hearings when physical, in person hearings became unfeasible. In this instance, we had judges, lawyers, witnesses and experts all working remotely via video conference,” he says…

There has also been something of organisations adapting to the limitations of the technology. “The one thing that has become clear from video calls is that it is actually very difficult to talk over someone. As a result, my personal experience has been that video calls do tend to facilitate a constructive dialogue between participants while at the same time keeping meetings focused and on time,” says Shearman…

In order to address these challenges, Shearman recommends that protocols are created to ensure a consistent approach is adopted across an organisation. He says that at minimum, organisations should ensure that every meeting is password protected. “This is a very simple way of reducing the risk that an unknown participant can join a call without the host’s knowledge. A protocol may also specify the application which should be used – Zoom is not the only option and businesses may find that a different application provides a better service for their needs. Organisations may also want to consider whether a generic or on brand background is used by their employees,” he says.”