If I have to work from home I take the workstation home and use VPN just for synchronization of folders once in while. For this I have to share the ws disk via samba to the notebook with the open VPN.I guess i'm lucky to have a souped up laptop running xubuntu for work and not having to use our vpn for really anything day to day (as long as I can get to github and GCS I'm ok).
Maybe if the working from home thing goes on long enough your IT group will have to provide a better means of doing so.