BIP 0027:2007 Moving to Mobility. Creating a Successful Remote Work Environment

Overview

Moving to Mobility. Creating a Successful Remote Work Environment

Catherine Roseberry

It is estimated that the mobile workforce will grow 20% in the next three years, with approximately 878 million mobile workers by 2009, representing more than one quarter of the global workforce.

It is also estimated that as many as nine out of ten workers already work some of the time away from company headquarters, with up to 70% of employees working in locations remote from their supervisors.

Most companies currently view mobility as a small part of their IT budgets and many have failed to plan for its expected acceleration.

Advancements in technology now enable remote workers to work from practically anywhere in the world. Learning how to work properly with these technologies can give remote workers advantages over those working on site but it is important for remote workers to properly manage and use these technologies.

Management also plays an important role in the success of any remote work programme, as it must establish the ground rules for remote workers and create guidelines to enable the success of a remote work environment. 

Mobile working is about employees being productive away from “the office”. This covers a range of physical locations and situations such as working:

• Whilst travelling
• With clients in their own offices
• With clients at neutral locations
• Away from the office at fixed locations such as conferences
• When on medium and long-term assignments
• Working at home.

This book has been written to provide easy-to-use guidance for HR managers, IT managers and staff, on how to manage employees who work outside of the office environment, and aims to help them manage remote staff as effectively as possible.

How does the book help?

This book provides both work managers and remote workers with comprehensive guidance to make informed choices about the way they work, where they work and what equipment is best suited to fulfil their job functions. This information will help organizations maintain and improve their productivity. It examines:

• The background information on mobile working
• Why organizations need to employ resources in this area
• The hardware, software, information management and security issues required
• How mobile working can and should be managed on a day-to-day basis

A series of tips is also provided (for example what to do to ensure employees aren’t exposing the company network to viruses, etc) and detailed scenarios with explanations and solutions that organizations can undertake. 

Contents of the book include:

• Introduction
• Management overview
• Remote offices
• Working comfortably - ergonomics, background noise and other considerations
• Communication
• Using the Internet
• Making connections
• Security
• All the right gear
• Software
• Successful remote working - a conclusion

Also of interest and further reading

• BS ISO/IEC 17799 Information technology. Security techniques. Code of practice for information security management
• BS ISO/IEC 27001 Information technology. Security techniques. Information security management systems. Requirements

       BS ISO/IEC 18028 Information technology. Security techniques. IT network security

• BS ISO/IEC 18028-1  Network security management
• BS ISO/IEC 18028-2  Network security architecture
• BS ISO/IEC 18028-3 Securing communications between networks using security gateways
• BS ISO/IEC 18028-4 Securing remote access
• BS ISO/IEC 18028-5  Securing communications across networks using virtual private networks

Bibliographic Detail