IT chiefs must support the home front
Secure links for home workers and roaming employees need solid support from IT departments
The recent news that the UK’s growing army of teleworkers receive little or no help from their employers when setting up remote access to the office hardly comes as a surprise. But it does illustrate a continuing dilemma for IT managers: when does a home PC become a remote client, and at what point should the IT department intervene to secure data held on the hard disk or its connection into the corporate intranet, if at all?
It seems the safest approach is to issue all those needing remote access, whether from the home, the hotel room or elsewhere, with a pre-configured laptop or other portable device that has all the necessary software installed.
Of course, the trouble with this approach is the cost – both in terms of the capital outlay on hardware and software, and the IT department’s time in configuring and supporting the kit.
Nor is it ideal for home workers, most of whom will have a perfectly good desktop PC in the house, but will still be forced to lug 4kg of deadweight laptop with them whenever the opportunity for teleworking arises.
Making use of the employee’s own computer seems like a much simpler and more cost-effective solution; but has the drawback that it is harder to lock down the client compared with one directly attached to the company LAN.
For remote access to work, the IT department may have to trust the remote user to install and configure any necessary software, such as Lotus Notes or a virtual private network (VPN) client, or at least spend time talking them through it. This is always a tricky business, as anyone who has worked on a helpdesk can confirm.
There is also the security of sensitive data moving to and from the company intranet to think about. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)-based virtual private networks (VPNs) are only part of the solution, and there are also legal considerations about what is downloaded onto the remote client and whether the employer has any responsibility for it. This is increasingly important in an age of burgeoning copyright suits and corporate governance regulations.
Add to that the burden of ensuring effective antivirus measures to protect company data on the remote client and to stop malicious code from being transmitted elsewhere.
All of these issues could be ignored of course. Companies could simply block remote access to office systems, and leave home workers to communicate with the office purely via messages sent from their private email accounts. But this would mean many of the productivity gains of flexible working would be lost, which could act as a disincentive for employees to do it in the first place.
All of which indicates that there are no half measures when it comes to flexible working – if firms allow it at all, they must ensure their IT department gives remote staff full technical support if any advantage is to be gained for either employer or employee.