In the UK, Friday 18 May 2007 was National Work from Home Day.  Across the country companies were encouraged to allow employees to work from home in what was described as “…an opportunity to demonstrate that, without the stress induced by the workplace environment and the long commute most have to endure, people can be more productive occasionally working from home.”

Recognising the benefits that remote working offers, more and more UK companies are putting in place policies to enable it, and encouraging home-working practices.  Flexible working evangelists have often enumerated the benefits: a wider pool of potential employees from which to choose; increased productivity through reduced stress and enhanced work-life balance; maximising the time of corporate road warriors and business travellers; and, of course, the topic du jour, a smaller carbon footprint. 

No wonder that remote working has steadily grown in popularity. A recent British Chamber of Commerce report showed that 38 per cent of companies surveyed let their employees work from home.  What’s more, the figures from a Microsoft study on the same subject, showed that that figure went up to 50 per cent in London.

Despite this, the UK still lags behind other countries in Europe.  A 2006 report from the Cranfield School of Management found that the one in five UK companies allowing teleworking, compared unfavourably to the 44 per cent in Germany and Sweden, and the 40 percent in Norway – no economic slouches!

For those organisations that are embracing remote working, or considering offering it to employees, it is important to remember that this is an issue that goes beyond the HR department.

We have come to recognise that work is not about where you are, it’s about what you do for a number of social and cultural reasons.  But, equally, technology has played a massive role, and so it is important that the right IT is in place to support it.

If remote working is to be as efficient as possible, and really deliver productivity gains, it is essential that remote users have real-time access to all the data and systems they would have if they were in the office.   There’s no room for emailing critical documents backwards and forwards, or constant phone calls to request vital reports.

These days real-time data exchange is relatively straightforward.  What is slightly more tricky is ensuring that it is only authorised users who can get hold of that data.  In other words, security is a key consideration – particularly as remote working opens up a range of new security risks.

The PDAs and laptops that employees carry to enable them to work remotely may look like innocent, efficiency-enhancing devices, but for the IT department these gadgets have a more sinister aspect.

A sales person out visiting clients, for example, may decide to keep a copy of the customer database on his laptop, along with price lists, confidential internal business documents, contract details and financial information for his clients.  It all helps him to be as effective as possible when doing his job.

However, as soon as this kind of information is removed from the office on a mobile device the company is suddenly vulnerable if that equipment is lost or stolen.  Firms that think it won’t happen to them should take a look at the Nottingham Primary Care Trust, which lost information on 11,000 children; the Nationwide Building Society which lost details of 11 million customers stored on a laptop; or the US Transportation Security Administration which lost a hard drive containing details of 100,000 staff.

Even companies that think their customer list isn’t sensitive enough or big enough should consider what would happen if their biggest competitors obtained price lists or R&D information from a lost device.

Fortunately, today’s technology allows offers access to office-based PCs from mobile equipment, without ever having to store information on it. When this kind of remote access technology is used, the company is no longer vulnerable to industrial espionage or expensive law suits, even if the device falls into the wrong hands.

What’s more, such technology enhances the security measures already in place on the company’s network.  Very simply, it means that only one access point needs to be opened up in the corporate firewall, rather than one for each different application like email or CRM.  This means the company is less vulnerable as all traffic is going through one, secure ‘port’ or gateway.

The technology has another benefit.  One of the problems that remote workers encounter is a distant and uninformed support desk when their laptop does something unexpected.  Remote access and control enables IT helpdesks to access and work on machines wherever they are in the world in real time, allowing them to support remote workers easily and quickly.

Flexible working, working from home, business trips – these are all driving the demand for access to corporate systems while users are out of the office. It is now just down to the organisation to ensure they are doing it in the most effective and secure way.