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The ifs and buts of Bring Your Own Device policies
There has been an increasing acceptance of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies amongst the corporate world as they play a critical role in improving employee productivity, especially through the usage of smart-devices for work.
There has been an increasing acceptance of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies amongst the corporate world as they play a critical role in improving employee productivity, especially through the usage of smart-devices for work.
In a recent survey conducted on the ‘Impact of BYOD policies on productivity’ by Wisdomjobs.com, the results portrayed flexibility in role and work satisfaction for the employees whereas the employers felt the risk of data leakage and unauthorised access.
The extensive survey was conducted across the country in eight cities namely Hyderabad, NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune & Ahmedabad, covering the IT, ITeS, Telecom, Education, Media, BFSI, Engineering and Manufacturing sectors. The Survey also throws light on the views of implementation of BYOD policies at the workplaces and the benefits associated with it.
BYOD policies use a risk-based approach to define the data that is and isn’t allowed to leave the internal network. Therefore, the corporates need to be clear about their BYOD protocols before implementing the policy. While in majority of cases, usage outside the network does not go beyond emails and presentations, sensitive information such as financial or proprietary data must be subject to strict controls.
There is always a risk of data loss when employees are sending sensitive documents to their personal devices, or making copies and storing them across multiple devices. Ajay Kolla, the Founder and CEO of Wisdomjobs.com said, “With BYOD policies gaining increasing traction in organisations, companies are opening up to the benefits of allowing their employees to carry their own devices to work.
Additionally, the burden of supplying, supporting and maintaining the devices is shifting from the organisation to the employees, who in turn are more comfortable working on devices of their choice. It also does away with the time wasted in switching between devices when an employee is at work.”
The detailed findings of the survey
From the employer’s viewpoint
- More than 25 per cent of companies surveyed have BYOD polices in place
- 20 per cent of the companies said they are not sure of the fallouts of implementing a BYOD policy
- Nearly 50 per cent of the companies with BYOD policies said that they had sufficient safeguards to minimise the risk of data loss while 20 per cent felt that their data security policies could be improved
- While all companies with BYOD policies offered support for Android devices, only 15% of those surveyed supported BYOD on iOS or Blackberry
- The industries that have the highest prevalence of BYOD are IT/ITeS, Media, Education and Telecom
- As a whole the major concerns regarding BYOD as mentioned by companies participating in the survey were: Data leakage or loss (70 per cent), Unauthorised access (50 per cent), Network security (35 per cent), and Cost management (22 per cent)
- Nearly 40 per cent of the companies opined that BYOD policies can result in increased productivity.
Over 39 per cent respondents believe that they need to follow the organisation security protocols when they work under the restrictions of a BYOD policy.
From the employees point of view
- The most common use of BYOD devices by employees was for: email (90 per cent), calendars and contacts access (65 per cent), document access (40 per cent), and access to the company’s intranet (35 per cent)
- 32 per cent of those surveyed felt that bringing their own device allows them flexibility in their role
- 28 per cent opined that BYOD increases their productivity
- 23 per cent felt that it increases work satisfaction
- 20 per cent say that they are more resourceful in solving problems with their own devices
- 16 per cent of those surveyed said that they are more likely to work for organisations that have BYOD policies
- 43 per cent of the respondents said that they never transferred work-related data to personal devices; 29 per cent transfer only non-sensitive data to their personal devices while only 15 per cent transfer all kinds of data to their personal devices
- While nearly 40 per cent of those surveyed have experienced a security issue on their devices, only 30 per cent of them felt that they have an obligation to inform their company about it.
