A Silicon.com leading article discusses the latest findings from an Office of National Statistics (ONS) study of teleworking in the UK.
The headline figures sound promising: home-working has more than doubled in the past eight years with 2.5 million Britons working at home. However, as Silicon.com points out, the majority were self-employed, and only a measly four per cent of employees were allowed to be teleworkers. The conclusion: "businesses have some way to go in providing the technologies and policies that enable a truly mobile and flexible workforce".
In my view, the increasing ease-of-use and growing reliability of IT, the growing use of ASP-delivered solutions (such as extranets), and the emergence in many organisations of mobile, home-based workers – so-called ‘tech nomads’ – may accelerate change. The higher expectations created by ASPs may also motivate organisations to demand more of their IT departments and vendors of traditional IT tools.
