Gas price increases spur interest in telecommuting

Computerworld - As gasoline prices spiked early this week by 10 cents to 20 cents a gallon around the country, telework managers said employees are requesting more hours to work at home via computer and broadband to avoid lengthy and expensive drives to the office.
IT executives said they can accommodate more teleworkers, with many companies having set up guidelines and the proper security such as virtual private networks. Innovations over recent years, such as Web collaboration tools, are already widely in use. Broadband connections are becoming commonplace, so gaining a big pipe to run a VPN and access big files from home isn't as hard as it used to be.
In recent weeks, Saint Luke's Health System in Kansas City, Mo., has seen more hours of teleworking among workers already approved for it, said CIO John Wade. "We have an extensive capacity to support remote access, so we are prepared to allow more employees to use this approach," he said.
Wade said he expects an increase in requests to support full remote access, which is secure, as "cost pressures on the employees escalate."
Another IT executive said adding teleworkers is no longer a technology concern.
"Telecommuting isn't a technology challenge as much as a cultural challenge," said Skip Snow, an IT executive at a major financial institution who also telecommutes long distance. "The problems with telecommuting don't have as much to do with technology and tools as with whether a worker or manager will work as well with a guy on the phone as compared with the guy in the next office. But with globalization, remote workers are going to be the norm."
As with many other companies, broadband connections are required for teleworkers at General Electric Co.'s GE Energy division in Atlanta to run a VPN. But at GE, a third-party hosting service also means employees can connect to internal systems via a Web browser, which is useful in airports and as a backup if a home computer isn't working, said Larry Tardell, Southeast infrastructure operations leader at GE.
Snow said he can work on any computer virtually anywhere using a smart card equivalent for a password and reaching his company through a company portal.
Several companies in Atlanta, where urban air pollution has for years forced companies to encourage car pools and telework, said they are already prepared for renewed interest in telework should gas prices continue to climb, having put in place policies for network and computer security and proper supervision of home workers in recent years. The