Far from the mother ship: Managing remote workers

Computerworld - Recently, senior software engineer Wayne Showalter went to France on vacation from Ventana Medical Systems Inc. Normally, his absence would leave his boss, Anthony King, in a panic. "He's really the backbone of our operation, and when he goes on vacation, it's often been chaos," says King, director of software and engineering systems at the Tucson, Ariz.-based manufacturer of diagnostic instruments.

Sure enough, this year an issue arose that threatened to stop development cold, but King wasn't worried. From an Internet cafe in France, Showalter was able to log into the network, diagnose and fix the problem, and recompile the program.

"In the past, we'd have to shut down the program until he came back or fly him back to do it," King says. But because his group has been using a new Web-based tool to facilitate remote software development, King was able to solve the problem with minimal disruption of his software operation or Showalter's vacation.

Ever since the mid-'80s, when then-CIO Charlie Feld transformed Frito-Lay Inc.'s marketing field force with handheld computers, managing remote workers has been a challenge and an opportunity for IT. Today, with 37% of the workforce working remotely at least part time, according to Gartner Inc., IT leaders are wrestling with vaster distances, tighter time constraints and shrinking budgets in their efforts to manage remote employees and retain a unified corporate culture. But the challenge is being met by an abundance of tools and strategies.

"We do all our own development, and many of our developers work from home full or part time—some out of state," says King. To enable remote programming, he tried using the virtual private network (VPN) that keeps Ventana's field salespeople in touch. "But our applications are so large that it was very, very slow, almost to the point of not being functional," he says.

In February, he installed GoToMyPC from Expertcity Inc. in Santa Barbara, Calif. The Web-based technology downloads installer software to the PCs at Ventana. When a worker needs to connect remotely, he accesses the GoToMyPC Web site from any Internet-enabled PC, and the Web server initiates a connection to the PC in his office. Two layers of log-ins and passwords and 128-bit encryption ensure security, and once the user is in, the remote PC mimics his desktop.

"Whatever programs you have access to at work, you have," King explains. "It's very, very cool."

The system tracks users' online time—a feature that came in handy recently when the company's auditors wanted to know how King monitors remote workers. And it has been very economical, he says, with a one-time setup fee of about $1,500 and a monthly fee of $17.95 per seat for his 20 users.