Survey: Hard times encourage remote working

gallery

The tough economic times are putting more pressure on IT decision makers to cater for an increasingly distributed workforce, a new survey has found.

Nearly half (43 per cent) reported an increase in general employee distribution during this year compared to 2007.

Even more (58 per cent) expected the numbers of remote workers to increase further in the coming year, with employees expecting exactly the same level of applications and information as in the office.

Out of a total of 160 respondents to survey carried out by Citrix, the biggest driver for this increasingly dispersed workforce was cited as ‘employee demand’ by 32 per cent.

James Stevenson, Citrix vice president for the UK, Ireland and South Africa, said: “It seems hard times have led employees to seek to reduce travel by working from home.”

But, with more and more staff wanting to work away from the office, he added that the pressure was on for IT managers to deliver an optimised service to all users on the network, no matter where they reside.

“Historically, working away from the office is likened to being treated as a second class citizen – slow application delivery, little IT support and even, total application failure,” he added. “This cannot be the case in 2009.”

Email to a friend

Print this page