While much of business has moved into the twenty-first century, one thing that continues to demonstrate a profound stuck-in-the-80’s mentality is the demand for on-site work. To be sure, there are some levels of work that have to be conducted on-site. It’s somewhat challenging to do hardware work remotely, for instance, unless you have a protein based robot at your beck and call on-site, in which case you may as well be there yourself in many instances.
Software work? Consulting? Let’s start being smarter about that. Let’s consider the following impasse:
- Companies regularly require local presence when there is no need.
- Companies regularly cite security concerns as a reason why people have to come on-site.
- Companies want people to attend site 5 minutes ago when they have an issue.
This is the 21st century. We can get around these problems and help the environment by not requiring people to travel everywhere to do some work. (Red tape and bureaucracy alone should never be a reason to deny remote work – honestly, if it is used as a reason with a straight face, there’s something seriously wrong with a company.)
Despite what some would have you believe, I’d estimate that in 90% or more of the cases where security is cited as a reason to prevent remote access, security is not a sufficient reason. Let’s consider options here:
- Legally binding non-disclosure agreements.
- Isolated virtual machines, audited by both companies.
- Physically isolated machines (e.g., incoming connection machine only plugged into network when necessary).
- Fixed IP addresses for access isolation.
- Audited, or even remotely monitored sessions.
- One time passwords for login.
- One time passwords on the remote access machine (at the consultant’s company) that are only provided when connectivity is required.
- Encrypted traffic.
- Encrypted traffic over VPNs. (I.e., doubly-encrypted traffic.)
- Automatic lock-out of inactive accounts (e.g., not used in 5 days – lock out).
All of these and more will resolve all security issues in (again, I’d estimate) more than 90% of cases, and the remaining cases are as much as anything based on legal or military obligations. (Any case where it doesn’t resolve it due to red tape or bureaucracy is shameful.)
- We have too many cars/motorbikes on the road;
- Diesel trains still consume an inordinate amount of fuel per passenger, regardless of whether that’s less or more than cars (this is frequently debated);
- Electric trains have to get their power from somewhere, and for many countries that’s fossil fuel power-stations anyway;
- Airplanes use large amounts of fuel too.
Sure, we have to acknowledge that when we use computers and network/internet infrastructure, we’re using power which in turn may be coming from fossil fuel power stations as well. But even a quick search reveals a plethora of studies that show telecommuting uses significantly less power/fossil fuel resources than regular commuting. Telecommuting doesn’t, of course, have to only be about employees, but it can be with contractors and other “on-hire” staff too. Not only that, companies that are reluctant to try telecommuting with their own employees can dip their toes into the water by making provisions for remote work from contractors, support suppliers, etc.
Now I’ll mention my biases here:
- I do remote work
- I do support work
- I do on-site consulting work
- I’ve done my fair share of lengthy travel for remote work
- Lengthy travel doesn’t enthrall me.
- Lengthy stays in hotel rooms don’t enthrall me.
But let’s also be honest – IT consulting is not a family-friendly environment. Long hours of both travel and on-site work can at times actually detract from the experience both for the person doing the consulting and the company engaging the consultants. Particularly when the work is running late, or out of hours, happy people work better than unhappy people.
Bottom-line/numbers person? Then let’s think about project costs. If you think that any company doesn’t build staff travel and accommodation costs into their prices, think again. (Actually, depressingly I do have personal experience in one major PC company that continually demands such stupidity from companies which they buy contracting services from – and they continue to leave a string of collapsed contractor companies and dejected, failed ex-company owners behind them who thought they could manage or hide those costs.)
In all honesty, continuing to insist on local site attendance for activities that can be done cheaper, more immediately and more comfortably for all involved is just ongoing collective business insanity.
If you want to do something for the environment in 2010 – and make business cheaper without losing profitability, how about you:
- Suggest to your customer, if you’re a consultant, that an on-site activity they’d normally get you to do is one that you can do remotely (of course, only if it can be done remotely!)
- Ask your consultants, if you’re a customer, whether they can do the work you want done remotely.
Of course, there’s always going to be situations where on-site work is required, but let’s start bringing consulting into the 21st century.