I attended a press conference today, where details of a TELUS-commissioned Harris/Decima survey on “Flexible Work” were discussed. The survey contains some interesting data from Canadian companies.

The stand out finding is that 89% of employees consider a flexible working program (one that includes some remote / mobile working option) makes a company more attractive. An expert panel backed-up this conclusion with supporting data showing how many job-seekers entering the market consider flexible working to just be table-stakes.

There’s no doubt that the small business sector is especially embracing of flexible work programs. Small businesses enjoy a type of agility and readiness to embrace more cutting-edge concepts that larger businesses are slow to adopt. One area that is of particular interest for me, is how we can continue to ensure good information security practices, even though our workforce is increasing mobile–working at home, in coffee shops, airports, etc.

Small businesses often don’t have the extensive IT infrastructure that larger companies are able to leverage to maintain an acceptable level of security. What type of infrastructure are we talking about? Here are just a few:

• Remote network access, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection back to the ‘office’ network.
• Remote voice communication: mobile phones, VoIP telephony, etc.
• Data backup.
• Update mechanisms for anti-virus software, operating systems and applications.

For some businesses, this means investing and building out the necessary infrastructure, which can be costly and brings with it management overhead that previously may not have existed. For others, outsourcing is a more viable option. I have seen several businesses, for example, make the transition to Google Applications as a way of ensuring their remote workforce can collaborate effectively, regardless of their location. Once these hurdles can be overcome, we must not forget to think about how these changes have impacted our information security.

There may be some concrete benefits to providing a flexible working program in your business, but it also brings some security considerations to the forefront. Maybe now is a good time to think about your flexible working strategy and review your security practices to see if they are still effective.