MOBILE WORKERS GET NAKED

Written by Adam Gosling

Wednesday, 01 March 2006

SSL VPN security appliance maker, SonicWall has released the results of a Global survey revealing some interesting habits of the work at home mobile crowd. Apart from 12% of men, 7% of women, working naked the majority of remote workers do actually get dressed to undertake their daily toil - though 39% of respondents of both sexes said they wear sweats. SonicWall and Insight Express conducted the survey of remote and mobile workers in the 25 to 45 age range and got 941 respondents. Of those 650, came from the US, with the remainder from Australia, Canada, Asia Pacific, Japan and Europe. Only a small percentage of respondents indicated they had any feelings of guilt as they worked away from the office (9%). That’s because 76% of them believe that working remotely is an aid to productivity and only 12% of them take a longer lunch with that extra freedom. However, 18% of men regularly take a break to do household chores such as laundry, dishwashing or dusting. Women are more likely to get sidetracked by housework with more than 38% admitting they did chores. Still, 61% are convinced their managers agree it’s a more productive way to work. Everybody revealed they were more relaxed about their personal habits when working out of the office. In matters of cleanliness, for example, 44% of women surveyed said they showered while only 30% of men bothered to wash. Slightly more (33%) were likely to shave. Around 45% listen to music as they work and slightly less (28%) can’t switch off the TV, 21% of admitted to having an afternoon nap. SonicWall would be pleased to find that 86% access their corporate network several times a week with more than half doing so on a daily basis. However, this was primarily restricted to email will less than half accessing other applications remotely. The survey does indicate a growing trend towards home working that leads to a more productive and liberated workforce, says SonicWall. Respondents explained a flexible schedule was the chief attraction. More than 80% said they have never lost their temper with support staff trying to help them fix a problem and only 40% said they experienced problems accessing their corporate networks. Security was clearly not high on the list of things remote workers are thinking about. 88% of the individuals surveyed admitting to storing passwords in easily-discovered locations, with only 12% employing encrypted files to store and manage their login data. 56% said they rely on their memories to keep track of their network passwords, while others used the same passwords for all devices, stored the information on cell phones, or stuck notes with the login information onto their computer (4%). Only 22% of workers used cell phones or PDAs to work from home, but respondents said they expected this type of usage to grow in the coming year. Related news items Broadcom Enthusisam for 802.11n Wavers -06/09/2007 Sydney Airport Network Improved For APEC -03/09/2007 Mobile Apps Worth Billions To Operators -01/08/2007 D-Link Boosts Draft N Range -30/07/2007 New BlackBerry Has Wi-Fi -18/07/2007 Newer news items ACMA Launches SPAM Toolbar -29/05/2006 Microsoft Beefs Up Remote Access Credentials -18/05/2006 World First Mobile Chat Guidelines To Protect Children -10/05/2006 Backup Your Laptop Anywhere -02/04/2006 Ericsson Does Security Deal With Trend Micro -09/03/2006 Older news items EMERGENCY DIALLING FOR MOBILES -16/02/2006 TROJAN TARGETS PC AND PHONE -22/09/2005 BETTER WIRELESS SECURITY -23/08/2005 KASPERSKY UPDATES PDA PROTECTION -28/06/2005 RIM BEEFS UP SECURITY FOR US SPOOKS -28/06/2005 Tag This Now: