Taking the optimum route to flexible working

Lockdown has provided an opportunity for many more organisations to recognise the benefits of flexible and mobile working. Most local authorities, of course, already have such policies, many of which will have been used and refined over a number of years. The opportunity now is to review these to confirm whether they are fit-for-purpose and capable of being applied more widely.

For empowering employees there are fundamentally three options:

• A laptop issued at start of employment which they solely use, delivering an ‘any time, any place’ service – assuming power and WiFi is available
• Flexible desks equipped with workstations or pooled mobile devices
• VPN access from user devices

Public sector organisations tend to support all the above to some extent today, as well as fixed workstations at dedicated desks and WiFi deployed in offices. Therefore, provided all these services can be easily scaled, flexible and mobile working can be expanded with minimum risk. The challenge is in evolving ‘make do’ solutions, some born out of lockdown, into a long-term new way of working. Bear in mind, every home worker and every flexible/drop in office will need the bandwidth, quality of service and resilience necessary to perform their respective roles.

At one end of the scale, a broadband connection with no guaranteed SLA may be adequate to access information and systems from home. At the other extreme, there are roles that involve interacting with the public such as contact centre agents and social workers. Here, telephone or video conversations and access to information and systems are essential. Jitter, latency and poor sound or picture quality may be acceptable in a work environment with people you know, but not in a conversation with somebody who may be distressed. 

However, it is relatively straightforward to implement a range of fit-for-purpose WAN, voice, data, internet and cloud access solutions for covering all eventualities. These are all available today at a standard price so can be easily introduced into any business case.

Home broadband with VPN technology, for example, is likely to be sufficient where most activity is transaction based and not dependent on quality or availability. For connections that must support QoS for ensuring sufficient bandwidth for voice and video and a second connection, FTTC should be adequate – at least for a home worker and probably a small office. The backup service may be a challenge for homes but 4G is a viable option where available and reliable. Nevertheless, this would require additional equipment and may not be practical for everybody. In future, FTTP and 5G will significantly enhance bandwidth mitigating the need for QoS.

 For team working there could be several options depending on the type and reliability of access required and the amount of interaction between team members. Some may be better served using local drop-in offices if they require printing and a service level that cannot be achieved at home.

Optimising Network Infrastructure 

Underpinning and determining the reliability and resilience of all the above services is the underlying network infrastructure. The level of trust that can be placed on the network will depend on its architecture. In the ‘new normal’ world the opportunity for IT is to radically redesign the network taking into consideration policies on hosting, business continuity, “internet first”, and security. Fundamental decisions will also need to be taken on whether the network should be an internet, MPLS or SDWAN architecture.

If the cost benefit analysis justifies it, then SDWAN could be the best approach, particularly the ease of management and configuration change. However, creating a network as an extension of the Internet may be simpler to manage if the network is being shared. But there would need to be a transition plan to move away from any existing MPLS architecture as most shared networks use MPLS as a trusted method of separating user communities.  Any transition to a new architecture could therefore be complex but it is possible to have a hybrid solution bearing in mind organisations move at different speeds.

Security implications

Last, but not least, are the security implications. A computer at home connected via internet broadband introduces risks that do not exist with workstations in corporate offices. Weaker firewalls, direct Internet access and mistakes like making it visible to other devices on a home network make the device more vulnerable to attack. VPNs and data encryption can mitigate the risk. With more home working, searching for vulnerable home user devices is likely to become the most common point of attack for hackers looking to harvest data.

Location and management of firewalls are an expensive part of the infrastructure and their number and location will be an important component of the financial modelling. Different network architectures will also come with different business continuity risks. Clearly, the cost of mitigating these is important. For example, applications hosted in a virtual cloud and accessed via the internet provide a high level of resilience in the event of physical damage to equipment and circuits. However, private circuits and equipment directly protected by firewalls is more secure against cyber threats.

In summary, for councils now contemplating the considerable productivity and cost benefits of expanding flexible working, the good news is the network services and comms solutions are available and proven. However, the ability to scale and future-proof these to realise their full potential is intrinsically linked to an optimised network infrastructure. Taking the right route will require careful consideration and expertise.