SECURITY

Bring-Your-Own-Device Policies Improve Worker Productivity, Happiness

Rebecca Kutzer-Rice | Date: 10-04-11 | Comments

At many businesses, employers are more often allowing workers to choose their company-bought devices or bring their home devices to the office. While this trend has security implications, companies hope it will increase productivity and satisfaction among employees.

IBM's 2011 CIO Study showed that IT departments are experiencing a rising use of mobile devices among workers. Rather than fight this trend, many businesses are embracing it by allowing employees to pick out their devices or bring in devices from home.

A new survey by Forrester revealed that nearly half of employees buy smartphones without considering their company�s needs. As a result, many businesses are creating bring-your-own-device (BYOD) polices to encourage worker productivity. Other companies are giving employees money to buy devices of their choosing.

"The New York Times" recently published an article about the rising trend in worker-chosen devices. At Kraft Foods, for example, employees are given a stipend to purchase their own devices.

"We heard from people saying, 'How come I have better equipment at home?' We said, 'hey, we can address that,'" Mike Cunningham, chief technology officer for Kraft Foods, told the "Times."

If Kraft employees want machines more expensive than the stipend covers, they must make up the difference out of pocket.

Other companies are simply allowing employees to bring their own mobile phones and tablet computers to the office. The BYOD trend not only saves the company money in buying new devices, it also eases demands on IT staff, as workers often go to a manufacturer�s tech support for help.

However, most banks and other companies that deal with confidential information are unable to adopt such BYOD polices. At Wells Fargo, for example, workers cannot connect to the corporate network with their own devices.

This so-called "consumerization of IT," though relatively new to the corporate world, has a long past in universities, where IT departments have spent over a decade supporting user-owned devices.

A blogger at the Dublin City University School of Computing in Ireland, for instance, notes that, at the school's computer labs, "it is common to see a student stubbornly insisting on using their own personal laptop wedged between the PCs."

Corporate IT departments might turn to universities for lessons learned about dealing with security and other issues with user-owned devices.
Does your company currently have a BYOD policy? Do you want one? Sound off in the comments section below.