Remote working on the rise in the UK

Remote working is becoming increasingly prevalent within UK businesses despite the fact it can increase costs and raises security issues, research has suggested.

The study by research firm Vanson Bourne included a survey of 500 IT decision makers in the UK and Germany. It found that 96 per cent of the organisations questioned said that they allow remote working, almost all (98 per cent) of those who permit it saying that it is advantageous to their organisation.

In terms of the benefits organisations are seeing, the main one was that remote working has increased employee motivation due to greater flexibility, with 62 per cent of respondents citing this factor. This was closely followed by it enabling employees to work from a greater range of locations, which was a benefit cited by 61 per cent of the decision makers surveyed.

Nevertheless, of all the places staff can now work from, remote working is mainly used to enable employees to carry out their job from their home - 62 per cent of respondents said this was the most common method of remote working. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) was used by 51 per cent virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) was used by 46 per cent.

The main barrier to organisations adopting remote working is security fears. Nine in 10 (92 per cent) said that remote working raises security challenges. Specifically, more than half (54 per cent) of respondents said they are worried about data losses through misplaced devices, while 61 per cent fret about insider threats, and the potential for employees to expose the organisation to the risk of a data breach or loss.

The security fears are seemingly well placed; 54 per cent of survey respondents said they believe that the data employees take away from the office could be secured more robustly.