Published on the 22/05/2014 | Written by Beverley Head
While the majority of Australasian employees now spend some time working outside of the office there are mixed signals about the level of technical support that they want or receive…
A newly released survey of over 2400 employees across Asia Pacific has revealed that 73 percent of Australians now spend some time working outside of the office.
Sponsored by VMware and released this week, the survey found that so called millenials – workers aged under 33 – were leading the charge to more flexible work practices using a blend of their own and company technology in order to work where and how they wanted.
But VMware’s findings are somewhat at odds with a much larger survey of Trans-Tasman teleworking habits conducted late last year by Auckland University of Technology which found that a far higher 89 percent of Australian and New Zealand employees teleworked for one or more hours a week, with the mean being 13 hours a week. Admittedly VMware’s survey was of organisations with 1000 or more employees while the Trans-Tasman survey covered all sizes of business – but that seems hardly enough to explain the quite significant difference.
This is the third year that VMware has sponsored the “MeConomy” research. In 2012 the survey uncovered employee hunger for BYOD, in the second year respondents noted a blurring of the lines between work and home life, while the 2014 survey has discovered a growing enthusiasm for working from home.
However it’s important to recognise that VMware’s survey is not longitudinal – different questions have been asked of participants each year so it’s impossible to compare like for like.
The VMware-sponsored findings regarding perceptions of corporate support and demand for BYOD support also contrast starkly with those in the AUT investigation.
According to VMware 43 percent of survey respondents said that their employer did not invest enough in new technology to support their work activities, 57 percent felt company IT policies were too strict, and 36 percent said that these policies actually slowed them down.
By comparison the AUT teleworking report found that the majority of respondents felt corporate technical support for teleworking was good. That report also noted that the vast majority of employees (64 percent) used equipment bought or supplied by the employer for teleworking purposes, just 17 percent used their personal devices for work purposes.
Besides being somewhat out of kilter with Auckland University of Technology’s study, some of the VMware survey responses are just plain strange. For example 66 percent expect “equipment that works” (what, 34 percent don’t?) and just 55 percent said they wanted fast network access and quick responses to IT requests.
