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Catbert still thwarts mobile IT - mmo2 report

In theory, you can work from home. In theory, it doesn't matter where you are, it's what you're doing; or as Intel puts it, "work isn't a place, it's what you do." Someone should have told Catbert.

Catbert is the notoriously cruel Human Resources manager of the Dilbert Cartoon. Like all cats, Catbert likes to play with the victims before destroying them; and it seems that the typical corporation which is trying to use mobile IT, is being toyed with by evil HR felines.

There are plans to use wireless and mobile; but the employee never finds out.

"UK employees are missing out on the opportunity to work flexibly," says O2. Many companies, it says, "have signed up to the principles of flexible working, allowing employees to work from home for example - but lack of communication between IT and HR means that UK workers do not have access to the right mobile devices or technology that will allow them to do this in practice."

The phone provider undertook a survey of 600 businesses across the UK and found that 62% of businesses "are only partially achieving their objectives to introduce or improve flexible working despite making a £9.9 billion investment in mobile technology."

Significantly, HR is only involved in 1% of wireless LAN deployments and 5% in notebook PC's deployments. This happens, despite "flexible working" being stated as the investment objective.

The survey revealed that 63% of UK companies don't have a clear mobile strategy - and since the whole success of flexible working depends on giving the right people the right equipment, clear communication between HR and IT would seem to be the sine qua non. So, "its not surprising that businesses are failing to achieving their flexible working goals."

What is perhaps odd, is that mmo2 hasn't pointed cause and effect.

The report notes, with an apparently naive innocence, that "One of the key consequences of this poor planning and communication is the high levels of personal ownership of PDA and handheld devices in UK business, with many people buying their own equipment to get the job done."

The statistics show that on average, 7% of the business workforce are using their own PDAs at work. The worst employers, making up 21% of the total, have 50% of employees using their own hardware. "This creates a clear divide between those employees in a position to take advantage of flexible working and those without," says the report. And yet, it seems to be assumed that this is not deliberate.

It is a theory, much proclaimed by professional system administrators, that these days matters such as backup and authentication are all handled in a professional manner in corporate IT cultures. This seems to be optimistic. "Ad hoc personal ownership is also creating security concerns for companies, with 18% of IT directors surveyed admitting they had no knowledge about the level of personal device ownership within the business and whether employees are synchronising critical data, copying documents or sending emails for example."

That's the number who admit it!

Commenting on the research, Hugh Griffiths, mmo2's head of Mobile Data products and services O2 UK said: "The survey highlights that for both workers and businesses, the ability to work remotely is highly desirable."

But, in the absence of a mobile strategy and co-operation between IT and HR, "UK business is making its employees invest their own money in what have essentially become critical 21st century work tools," Griffiths added. He said: "IT and HR need to communicate so that the most effective wireless strategy can be developed to make the most of an increasingly flexible workforce with very different needs."

Of course - if we pretend that the objective is to create efficiency, that would be right. On the other hand, if we suspect that the plan is to save money, it would be very easy to understand why HT and IT avoid each other so carefully ...