Actu
Survey reveals future strikes encourages home working – although 48% can’t resist skiving off!
July 2011 by Marc Jacob
A survey of 1000 London workers last week revealed just 11 percent of were affected by the teachers strike on Thursday, yet 55 percent believe if there were the threat of future strikes it would encourage their employers to introduce IT measures that would allow them the flexibility to work from home should they be affected in the future.
Of the 65 percent who confirmed they already have the facilities to work from home, 72 percent stated that they actually enjoy doing so leaving just 28 percent who’d prefer to be in the office. Seventy seven percent of the sample believed their bosses trust them enough to remain at their home desk and get their work done.
However, the six million dollar question is really whether employers are right to trust their staff to be assiduous when left unsupervised. In fact, 48 percent of the sample admitted to being terribly distracted by chores and other things that need doing at home, confessing that they can’t resist skiving off. However, that still leaves the trusted majority of 52 percent who actually end up putting in more than a full day’s work by utilising the time saved from not travelling and generally being more productive, making home working a worthy investment for employers.
IT security experts SecurEnvoy, who commissioned the survey, found that the majority of people who are able to work from home do so securely. Forty nine percent use a password to log on to their computers while 44 percent use a password and two factor authentication (that’s something only you know and something you physically own - such as a token or phone). SecurEnvoy also discovered that employers are at last waking up to the need of securing their staff as 89 percent are further protected with a secure connection when communicating with the office.
Andy Kemshall, CTO and co-founder of SecurEnvoy said, “A few years ago, when we did a similar survey, we were shocked to discover very few people connecting to work environments securely. This time that’s no longer true with the results are far more reassuring as there appears to have been a huge sea change for computer security. Perhaps the spate of public hacks from groups like Lulzsec and Anonymous against brands like Sony, X-factor, M&S, Marriott and RSA is raising awareness.
“Who knows if there are going to be more strikes but, if there are, these could have a wider benefit on the general public by helping more people get IT installed at home to empower them to embrace home working. For the individual this flexibility can be enriching and, with 52 percent of them admitting they are just as efficient, if not more so, from home, anything that encourages increased productivity has to be a good thing.”
Notes:
The survey was carried out amongst 1000 workers on Friday 1st June by 4 researchers at various London locations including London Bridge, King’s Cross, Euston and Canary Wharf.
