Martin Courtney

New rules enabling parents with children aged under six years old to request flexible working options from their employers have thrust the issue of teleworking back into the spotlight. Good news for some, but IT managers must decide how best to provide the requisite remote networking links; and vendors and service providers must sell the equipment to do it.

But to say that things have advanced to the point that there are no longer any financial or technical barriers to the use of teleworking is premature.

The capital costs of providing staff with the necessary computers, network links, technical support, and financial assistance with telephone, power and heating bills can be a hefty investment in itself, albeit one that could be offset against lower office bills and increased productivity in some cases.

The process of providing some sort of network access to remote employees is generally quite easy, requiring only a RAS server and minimal configuration of an email client in most cases. But implementing secure links into more specific information databases or applications and setting up collaborative processes can be much more expensive, and time-consuming for the IT staff who have to install and support the necessary hardware and software.

And if we are to understand that the advance of teleworking and broadband are parallel developments, doesn't the absence of broadband services in large parts of the UK count as another technical barrier? Ironically, it is rural areas that may never get broadband services - precisely where many staff with long commutes live, who are also most likely to provide benefits to their employers in terms of increased productivity and loyalty if they work from home.

And if the number of UK teleworkers is to increase, many employers will have to change their attitude towards remote working, and trust their employees to get on with the job. Almost every teleworker I know has run the gauntlet of colleagues' jibes about working from home, defending their position to those who find the very idea of staying at home, but also working, to be laughable. I have lost count of the times I've seen the statement "working from home" accompanied with one of those two-handed two-fingered gestures that stereotypical left-wing social workers supposedly use to indicate inverted commas, implying that the phrase is some sort of misnomer.

Often nothing more than mild mickey-taking, this attitude can have inconvenient consequences for employees with a genuine reliance on home working. The juvenile belief that anybody given the freedom to either work or not work as the mood takes them will always end up lying on the sofa eating chocolate and watching daytime television may seem ridiculous. But it can worm its way into the minds of even the most liberal-minded of bosses if repeated often enough, and form a mental barrier that can be difficult to overcome.

In fact, it can be relatively easy to accurately monitor the productivity of remote workers. Managers simply need to allot individual deadlines for specific tasks, whilst making sure they can communicate quickly with teleworkers wherever they happen to be.

Have your say: reply to IT Week

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!