Telecommunication Needs For Remote Workers
Telecommunication needs for Remote Workers
Remote workers are fast becoming a very important part of the workforce. The Federal government for example, has a very aggressive telecommuting program in place, and almost every large corporation has at least some provision for work-at-home. In addition, telepresence technology has made it possible to establish the "virtual company" as a realistic alternative—a company with no corporate walls at all, where all employees and contractors log in from remote locations to conduct their daily duties.
There is no question that telecommuting and remote working represents the next generation of work, and that the nature of what a "job" is, is rapidly changing, and the age of the cubicle is rapidly fading into the background. But what does a company need to facilitate telecommunication for this emerging army of remote workers?
The first thing that you will need is to make sure that the remote worker has telephone and Internet access, that it is adequately provisioned, and that it is integrated with the back office. While some companies may be content with simply allowing a user to use their home phone line and home Internet connection, this does present a few limitations and risks, and even potential liability issues. For a worker that telecommutes regularly, it may be advisable to deploy a company extension in the worker's home, and this is easily done with a VoIP system, since the IP PBX does not require physical proximity to establish a phone extension. This will ensure that the remote worker is easily accessible during business hours—and not dependent on a home phone that may be occupied by other family members during critical times.
The teleworker's Internet connection is also of utmost importance. A broadband connection is essential, especially if there will be regular exchange of data, videoconferencing, and other types of collaborative technologies being used.
In addition to the broadband connection, security is essential, but often ignored. While the back office may be highly secure with the corporate perimeter protected by firewall, the home computers used by remote workers may be completely unsecured, and difficult to bring into compliance with corporate policy. For this reason, it is often advisable to provision a work computer to the telecommuting employee, which is to be used for business only. Home computers may be running rogue software, and may be vulnerable to viruses and malware, especially if other family members are using it. Provisioning a company computer allows the IT staff to ensure that only authorized applications are running on it, and that it is appropriately protected with security software. On the issue of security, the connection between home and office is one that could be vulnerable, but a virtual private network (VPN) will ensure that traffic is encrypted and transported through a virtual "private" tunnel over the Internet so that it cannot be accessed by a third party. Additional protections may include protected logons and two-factor authentication, which may involve a hardware token.
For telecommuting employees, corporate applications may be a concern. In many cases, specialized custom applications may not have to be installed on remote machines, rather, they can be deployed "over the cloud" through a web-based interface. This does require that the corporate application have some custom work, but cloud platforms have made this remarkably simple and straightforward. The remote employee then simply points his or her web browser to the corporate portal, logs on to the application (which sits on the corporate server), and runs it remotely.
Remote workers are fast becoming a very important part of the workforce. The Federal government for example, has a very aggressive telecommuting program in place, and almost every large corporation has at least some provision for work-at-home. In addition, telepresence technology has made it possible to establish the "virtual company" as a realistic alternative—a company with no corporate walls at all, where all employees and contractors log in from remote locations to conduct their daily duties.
There is no question that telecommuting and remote working represents the next generation of work, and that the nature of what a "job" is, is rapidly changing, and the age of the cubicle is rapidly fading into the background. But what does a company need to facilitate telecommunication for this emerging army of remote workers?
The first thing that you will need is to make sure that the remote worker has telephone and Internet access, that it is adequately provisioned, and that it is integrated with the back office. While some companies may be content with simply allowing a user to use their home phone line and home Internet connection, this does present a few limitations and risks, and even potential liability issues. For a worker that telecommutes regularly, it may be advisable to deploy a company extension in the worker's home, and this is easily done with a VoIP system, since the IP PBX does not require physical proximity to establish a phone extension. This will ensure that the remote worker is easily accessible during business hours—and not dependent on a home phone that may be occupied by other family members during critical times.
The teleworker's Internet connection is also of utmost importance. A broadband connection is essential, especially if there will be regular exchange of data, videoconferencing, and other types of collaborative technologies being used.
In addition to the broadband connection, security is essential, but often ignored. While the back office may be highly secure with the corporate perimeter protected by firewall, the home computers used by remote workers may be completely unsecured, and difficult to bring into compliance with corporate policy. For this reason, it is often advisable to provision a work computer to the telecommuting employee, which is to be used for business only. Home computers may be running rogue software, and may be vulnerable to viruses and malware, especially if other family members are using it. Provisioning a company computer allows the IT staff to ensure that only authorized applications are running on it, and that it is appropriately protected with security software. On the issue of security, the connection between home and office is one that could be vulnerable, but a virtual private network (VPN) will ensure that traffic is encrypted and transported through a virtual "private" tunnel over the Internet so that it cannot be accessed by a third party. Additional protections may include protected logons and two-factor authentication, which may involve a hardware token.
For telecommuting employees, corporate applications may be a concern. In many cases, specialized custom applications may not have to be installed on remote machines, rather, they can be deployed "over the cloud" through a web-based interface. This does require that the corporate application have some custom work, but cloud platforms have made this remarkably simple and straightforward. The remote employee then simply points his or her web browser to the corporate portal, logs on to the application (which sits on the corporate server), and runs it remotely.
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