Irish companies are increasingly being swayed by the value of letting staff work remotely, with a new survey showing that 90pc of medium and large organisations see the productivity gains in giving mobile workers secure access to the applications they need.
A study commissioned by Citrix, the access infrastructure provider, has found positive attitudes to mobile working among companies here, with two thirds of respondents offering formal staff training in flexible working.
Seven out of 10 Irish senior managers said that they are able to access important company information from a remote location. The most commonly accessed applications are email, the internet or company intranet, the survey found. Seven out of 10 companies in Ireland believe that access to the first two of these is sufficient for an employee to be classed as a mobile worker.
Most Irish firms believe that flexible working is an important aspect of disaster recovery, although the study found that not all would be prepared in the event of an incident that affected business continuity. Only two out of 10 companies in Ireland believe that all their staff would be able to continue working from another site in the event that their office became inaccessible.
Only 15pc of major companies in Ireland associate the increasing use of mobile devices with a loss of control of corporate information. Two thirds feel that trust is a key impediment to the successful implementation of mobile working. More than half of Irish companies feel that users would benefit from more communication about mobile working from the IT team.
By Gordon Smith
