Editor’s Note: As workers worldwide are impacted by the challenges created by the increasing prevalence and documented virulence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), companies are intensively investigating and actively employing strategies to reduce workplace risk. One strategy being considered is the decentralization and deployment of workforces, with the case for remote work being cogently presented and actively pursued as a viable and valuable approach to business continuity. The following extracts provide information and considerations for data discovery and legal discovery professionals faced with the challenge of eDiscovery continuity in these coronavirus-challenged times.

Extract from an article by William Arruda in Forbes

How Coronavirus Is Creating A Watershed Moment For Remote Work

As the number of people infected with the virus approaches a hundred thousand and the death toll rises, companies that have been reluctant to allow their workforce to skip the office are now having to weigh the risks in a way they never imagined; productivity would take a huge dip if just one infected employee came to work.

Already, some companies are getting out in front of the impending pandemic by promoting remote work. The Washington Post reports that “IBM, which nearly three years ago ended remote work for some U.S. employees, said it had asked workers in coronavirus-affected areas to work from home ‘wherever possible.’” Japan’s largest ad agency, Dentsu, told all its workers in its Tokyo headquarters to work from home. Other organizations will surely follow suit.

I predict that when the coronavirus is finally on the wane (a day that can’t get here soon enough), the return to the cubicle will be slowed, and at some companies, it won’t happen at all. That’s because once you give this perk to your people, it may be hard to woo them back to the office. This, in turn, could actually lead to a more successful workforce.

Read the complete article at How Coronavirus Is Creating A Watershed Moment For Remote Work

Extract from an article by Cali Williams Williams Yost in Harvard Business Review

What’s Your Company’s Emergency Remote-Work Plan?

This week, the coronavirus (or Covid-19) took a more serious turn in the U.S. with warnings that it could very well impact how, when, and where we work:

“Disruption to everyday life may be severe,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, cautioned at a news conference Tuesday. “Schools could be closed, mass public gatherings suspended, and businesses forced to have employees work remotely.”

The global spread of the virus may be a moment that reveals whether employers are ready to respond rapidly to unexpected workplace changes. Business travel could decrease or come to a full stop. More employees may need to work outside of local “business hours” and use video conferencing to operate across time zones. And, if it gets bad enough, many could indeed be asked, or request, to work remotely.

Are organizations ready? Chances are probably not. But even for those open to rethinking how the work would get done, are they ready for the inevitable post-crisis question: “Why don’t we do this all the time?

Read the complete article at What’s Your Company’s Emergency Remote-Work Plan?


Extract from the Remote Work Report by Zapier

Remote Work is Productive Work

Knowledge workers say they get the most done at home.

Home is where productivity lives. 42 percent of knowledge workers believe they are most productive working from home, compared to just under a third (32 percent) who feel they get more done in an office.

  • 52 percent of Baby Boomers say home is where they are most productive, as opposed to only 38 percent of Millennials. And yet only 11 percent of Baby Boomers work remotely full time, as opposed to 31 percent of Millennials.
  • Only 11 percent of knowledge workers feel they get the most work done in a co-working space.
  • Women are more likely than their male counterparts to say they are more productive when working from home (50 percent vs. 37 percent). Men, on the other hand, are more likely to say they’re more productive in the office (35 percent vs. 27 percent of women).
  • Full-time remote knowledge workers typically spend more hours, on average, each workday doing meaningful work (i.e., work that has significance and purpose) compared to their office worker counterparts. That’s 6.2 hours for remote workers compared to 5.7 hours for office-bound ones.

Read the complete article at Remote Work Report by Zapier


Press Announcement from eDiscovery Provider HaystackID*

HaystackID Emphasizes Remote Review Services for eDiscovery Business Continuity in Coronavirus-Challenged Times

The core of HaystackID’s remote review capability is enabled by ReviewRight Match and ReviewRight Virtual. When used in combination, these two offerings allow for the immediate mobilization of the best qualified and available reviewers regardless of language or location and provides a secure remote review infrastructure for delivering virtual review teams. This combined capability has also been shown to increase the quality and speed of reviews (1) as the pool of available reviewers with needed qualifications is not constrained by geographical proximity to review centers, and the speed of engagement is not restrained by fixed facility operations. HaystackID has performed more than 425 remote review projects to date with the projects spanning the spectrum of vertical industry markets and supporting many of the world’s top companies and leading law firms in matters requiring up to hundreds of reviewers.

As the leader in remote legal document review, HaystackID provides our clients with instant access to more than 16,000 (2) certified review attorneys who are available for selection and integration into our remote managed review teams through our ReviewRight Virtual offering,” highlighted Seth Schechtman, Senior Managing Director of Review Services for HaystackID. “We also have more than 3,200 (3) reviewers with experience conducting reviews with our ReviewRight Virtual infrastructure. Our potential pool of virtual reviewers, the streamlined manner in which we can onboard reviewers for remote review, and our established base of current reviewers with ReviewRight Virtual experience, allows us to help those in the eDiscovery ecosystem maintain review continuity without sacrificing quality or increasing review costs. This unparalleled capability in the industry is especially poignant today as it provides for surety of uninterrupted, safe, and secure work during these uncertain times.

Footnotes

(1) Schechtman, Seth. “The Right Way To Review Remotely.” HaystackID, 2019, https://haystackid.com/the-right-way-to-review-remotely/.
(2) HaystackID. HaystackID Recruiting Metrics – Regular Reporting. HaystackID, 2020, p. Recruiting Performance Metrics Table. Accessed 28 Feb 2020.
(3) Ibid. 

* The editor of ComplexDiscovery also currently serves as the CMO for HaystackID.

Read the complete press announcement at HaystackID Emphasizes Remote Review Services for eDiscovery Business Continuity in Coronavirus-Challenged Times


Extract from an article from ComplexDiscovery

A Snapshot of Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

When considering eDiscovery services to support the delivery of collection, processing, and review capabilities to remote users, Desktop as a Service (DaaS) providers are becoming important contributors to the overall technology solution as they allow for the deployment of virtualized desktop experiences delivered to end-users on demand from remotely hosted locations. While the providers enabling the delivery of these virtualized environments to those in the eDiscovery ecosystem are typically not called out in the descriptions of the solutions they enable, understanding who those providers are is becoming increasingly important for those sourcing eDiscovery solutions for remote users as the underlying attributes and enhancements the providers deliver form the basis for comparing and contrasting the differences in DaaS-delivered capabilities from eDiscovery providers.

Read the complete article at Enabling Remote eDiscovery? A Snapshot of DaaS


Additional Reading

Source: ComplexDiscovery

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