Party in my office. BYOD.
As the workforce grows more technology-savvy, most employees have very strong opinions and preferences about the type of phone, tablet and computer they use to do their jobs. A growing movement is seeing workers BYOD – or “bring your own device” – to the office.
When employees are allowed to use the technologies with which they are already familiar, the company can reap serious benefits. The costs of technology training drop, and productivity improves. Plus, job satisfaction typically rises, and firms can even gain a recruiting advantage over the competition.
Yet there are serious security risks associated with allowing employee devices to access the network. Not to mention the hassles for the IT department, which must support a myriad of devices that may or may not have adequate service plans. With these limitations in mind, does it make sense to pursue a BYOD policy at your company?
There are two strategies gaining traction in the marketplace right now that seem to make sense. In both cases, employees benefit from the satisfaction and improved productivity of working with familiar and preferred devices. At the same time, employers are protected from the networking being bombarded by an endless number of rogue devices.
Consider one of these two options for your organization:
- BYOD – with conditions. A recent article by CIO Insight beautifully illustrated this strategy. Unisys recognized that employees would fight any policy against using their own devices. So the company rolled out a BYOD policy in North America, allowing employees to bring their own smartphones or tablets to work. The caveat? Employees must agree to installation of two pieces of security software: a public-key infrastructure device certificate (which authenticates the phone on the network) and remote wipe software (to delete company data in the event the phone is lost or stolen). The company is protected, and employees are happy.
- A menu of supported devices. Under this scenario, employees are given a choice between three or more devices. For example, they may be able to choose between an iPhone, Android device or Blackberry. The same concept can extend to tablets and laptops. At some companies that have begun offering a choice between a PC or Mac, up to half of workers choose a Mac. Under this model, the IT burden remains relatively low. Help desk staff only need to support three kinds of devices, rather than the 10 or more that may be required when employees are given a completely free choice. Also, a limited number of service contracts can cover all of the company’s devices.
No matter your strategy, keep one thing in mind. As technology becomes a more natural, integrated part of consumers’ lives, they will have even stronger desires to control the kinds of devices and technologies they use on the job each day. It’s time to develop some kind of policy now, to get ahead of the BYOD curve.
About Tom Kincannon
