Managers embrace 'working from home' despite security concerns

The survey, ‘management views on remote working’, with 224 respondents indicated that offsite working is a growing trend in Australian and New Zealand businesses as 66.8 percent of the respondents noticed an increase in requests to work from home in the past 12 months.

Commissioned by security vendor SonicWall and conducted by online marketing research firm InsightExpress the survey also found that majority of those polled had an offsite working policy in place and 78.3 percent have it for employee motivation.

While, 50.4 percent of the respondents reported that more than 20 percent of their company’s employees work remotely.

However concerns about the impact of a remote workforce on effective team building, productivity and network security were prevalent.

About 47 percent believed remote workers are missing out on an aspect of the job by not being in the office and over forty percent are concerned about potential network security issues.

“Business leaders see the benefits that remote working brings, but at the same time, they feel added challenges in managing employee productivity and career development, and see greater risks in keeping company IT assets secure,” said Chris Barton, regional manager A/NZ, SonicWALL.