National Work from Home Day – The Results

Thursday 15^th May was chosen as this year’s National Work from Home Day. With the approval of organizations such as the CBI and the TUC, directors and staff around the UK were encouraged to work from home that day, so that everyone could enjoy the experience and the benefits.

The benefits being sought included: Increased productivity, allowing important tasks to be focussed on and completed Better use of time Reduced office costs Travel costs savings Greater flexibility to meet work requirements and better work-life balance

As secure remote access to office information is a prerequisite for home working, Keyfort provided free network engineering support on the day to encourage the use thereof.

So how fared the day?

Success, well sort of.  Those who worked from home realised the benefits and are strong supporters of occasional or regular remote/home working as they realise the benefits of better work and life results.  There is a proviso, in that remote working should not exclude regular contact with work colleagues.  Ask anyone who regularly works remotely and they will confirm it as an essential working practice to enable them to achieve best results.  Those who tried home working for the first time can see the benefits provided that technical issues are ironed out.  Those who did not try it, require an effort of will and support to prioritise remote working if they are to see its benefits.  The results in general can be divided into four broad categories.

·    The first is that it worked well for the home worker as it has for some time or for the new home workers, after a few minor routing and access issues were resolved.

·    The second is that it worked well, as it has done in the past, until the number of concurrent remote (home) users climbed and the systems slowed down under the increased work load.  This is a problem of scale whether for the network or for the computer servers providing the information or both.  The solution is to ensure that the appropriate technology is configured correctly complete with adequate bandwidth and server processing power to meet the peak demands.

·    The third is that the pilot remote access system worked to some extent and the pioneer home workers can see the value in occasionally working from home.  The next step in these cases is to formalise, secure and provide ongoing support for the remote access technology.

·    The fourth is nothing happened due to one or both the potential remote users and the IT team being too busy.  The solution here is to have a trial system installed and supported so that the benefits of flexible working can be achieved thus freeing up user and IT time.

We trust that this information is of use in progressing remote working flexibility in your organization.  If Keyfort may be of assistance with your remote access technology and support, whether it is simply implementing a security certificate for your remote login portal or implementing a complete system please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are also interested in your experience of remote working as a user or from a technical point of view.  So please do let us know your thoughts on the matter as we are keen to improve the remote working services that Keyfort offers.