Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a term used to describe the increasingly popular practice of employees bringing their own smart devices to work.
Mostly reserved for employees’ personal phones and PCs, BYOD is becoming the norm in many organizations and it’s estimated that 74% of workplaces are allowing employees to bring their devices in for business use. It’s a practice which has been gradually growing since the start of the decade and is expected to become even more popular in the next couple of years.
An IT policy which incorporates a BYOD culture can provide some serious benefits to your organization, so let’s take at what’s on offer.
Understanding the Benefits
Allowing your staff to use their own devices for work related purposes allows your organization to become more efficient and, at the same time, provide a working environment which is both open and relaxed. The main benefits of BYOD in the workplace that you can expect to see are:
- Familiarity Breeds Productivity: Everyone is at their most productive when they’re comfortable and, if an employee is using their own device, BYOD can make a massive difference in productivity. Knowing a device inside out means that users will be able to reduce downtime by solving operational errors quickly and the device will be set up exactly how that user needs it.
- Cost Saving: If your employees are bringing in their own devices to complete business duties, then you’re going to experience a massive reduction in costs. Not only will the need to purchase new hardware be negated, but the cost of upgrades will be the sole responsibility of the employee.
- Flexibility: Remote working is becoming more and more popular – half the UK workforce are expected to be working remotely by 2020 – and this is partly due to the BYOD landscape. You see, by allowing employees to use their own devices, they’re provided with an opportunity to work from wherever they want. While this provides flexibility for the employee, it also provides the employer with an opportunity to save costs on workspaces etc.
- Up to Date Technology – Personal devices are upgraded much more frequently than enterprise devices, so incorporating a BYOD ethos can ensure that your organization has state of the art technology at its disposal for no cost. This allows your organization to boost productivity and remain competitive, but not affect the yearly budget in any way.
- More Focus for IT Departments – If employees are using their own devices then the maintenance and upkeep of them is down to the employees. Naturally, this will significantly reduce your IT department’s workload and allow them to concentrate on more pressing issues such as network maintenance and security breaches.
As you can see, there are plenty of benefits on offer by allowing the BYOD culture into your workplace. Almost every benefit is likely to bring an increase in productivity, so which organization can honestly say that it wouldn’t welcome this? The time to implement BYOD is upon us, so make sure you get there before your competitors.
For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.
