Teleworkers are smartphone workers

If your image of the average Teleworker is somebody sat in front of a computer at home, think again. Research by the ACMA shows more teleworkers using smartphones than desktop computers, and this does not include workers whose work role takes them out of the office.

This means that the use of mobile devices - and hence the need for management policies, procedures and technologies - extends well beyond senior executives and those companies with mobile work forces.

The ACMA has produced a research snapshot on what it calls ‘digital workers’ in Australia: a group that it defines as including ‘teleworkers’ who are allowed to work away from the office for part or all of the day, and those using the Internet to work away from the office outside standard working hours.

The ACMA put the total of digital workers in Australia at 5.6 million. The bulk of these (4.6 million) work from home and about 1.6 million work while travelling, including while commuting.

Of these digital workers the ACMA estimates some 40 percent use their own laptop, 28 percent an employer-supplied laptop and 33 percent a mobile phone. Tablet usage stood at 21 percent and use of the most established technology, desktop PCs at 30 percent.

And the percentage of companies allowing staff to work from home for at least one day per week is now significant. Fifty five percent of medium sized businesses (20-199 employees) permit this and the figure rises to 67 percent for SMEs in the communications services sector. The wholesale trade and the property and business services sectors were next with 52 and 47 percent of businesses, respectively, allowing staff to work from home.

Moreover, in many cases the opportunity to work from home is not limited to a privileged few. The ACMA found that 26 percent of SMEs with digital workers had between 81 and 100 percent of their staff working away from the office at least one day a week.

A surprising percentage of digital workers - 22 percent according to ACMA estimates - are allowed to work away from their normal workplace for more than four days per week, while the percentage allowed one day per week was only 15 percent and those permitted less than one day per week away was 35 percent.

Not surprisingly the views of ‘digital workers’ on the practice are overwhelmingly positive: more flexibility (55 percent); more productivity (30 percent); access to home comforts (28 percent) and better work/life balance (23 percent). Fifty three percent saw no negatives but, again not surprisingly, reduced access to communications was identified as the biggest disadvantage, by 24 percent of respondents.

Here again good mobile device management practices can help. Security concerns and bandwidth limitations will always impose restrictions on external access to corporate IT facilities. However appropriate mobile device management technologies and systems properly implemented and administered can minimise these barriers and facilitate access to the applications and data that ‘digital workers’ need to do their jobs.

Mobile device management technology is designed primarily to manage tablets and smartphones but can also be used to manage OSX (Apple) laptops. Windows laptops are managed with Systems Management Server, which manages all Windows desktop PCs.