Allowing employees to use their own devices at work lowers the cost of acquiring, deploying, and maintaining devices while reducing the number of necessary support personnel. However, in their rush to adopt a BYOD policy, there are some stumbling blocks businesses have overlooked, leading to mismatched expectations on the part of the company and users and increased vulnerability. How can your business overcome these issues?
Survey your users
Work with your employees to determine which devices they’re most comfortable using in the workplace, and establish whether they’ll be purchasing their own devices, or using those owned by the business.
Determine risk profiles
Some mobile devices carry more of a security risk than others- laptops, which are already expensive on their own, carry a higher security risk than smartphones because they carry so much more data. For many businesses, this means the risks of a ‘bring your own laptop’ policy outweigh the benefits.
Define service level agreements
If an employee-owned device breaks, what’s the expectation for the employee to get their device repaired? By not doing so in a timely manner, productivity lapses. Mismatched expectations like these are a huge cause of contention among BYOD adopters.
Prepare for connectivity issues
Your network is going to need to support a bunch of new devices, meaning you’re going to need to ensure your business has sufficient bandwidth. You may even need to upgrade your wireless network infrastructure in certain areas of your office.
We don’t want to scare you away from BYOD- it’s a great approach to your office hardware, and your employees will be happier using devices they’re familiar and comfortable with. It’s just important for you to think through the new risks and vulnerabilities a BYOD policy can introduce.