Should Employees Be Allowed To Use Their Own Devices For Work?

By Sarah Howland, Editor In Chief, Field Technologies magazine

As mobile devices continually increase in popularity on the consumer side, companies face mounting pressure from tech-savvy employees to allow them to use the device of their choice at work. The debate of whether your employees should be able to bring their own devices to work or be required to use company-provided devices is becoming increasingly common, yet no clear answer exists. I came across an interesting article from The Wall Street Journal (http://on.wsj.com/sNgdGT) that examines both sides of this debate and provides valuable insight into the pros and cons of the BYOD (bring your own device) phenomenon.

Arguing the ‘yes' side is John Parkinson, the chairman of a technology consulting firm. According to Parkinson, resisting the BYOD trend is futile. The more individuals become attached to the devices they use in their personal lives, the harder they'll fight to use those devices at work too. The reasoning makes sense – the devices they've chosen to use outside of work are often easier to use than the devices they're asked to use at work. Parkinson also suggests that managing corporate-liable devices has become more of a strain on IT departments because of the pressure from employees for exceptions and rapidly evolving technology. He goes on to site four key forces that are impacting the changing use of technology on the job: mobility, virtualization, the rising use of temporary/contract labor, and difficulty getting a good return on fixed assets. While Parkinson doesn't deny concerns of safety and privacy, he states that it's time to start looking for the solutions to these challenges – because they aren't going away.

Erik Sherman, a blogger for CBS Moneywatch takes the opposing side, stating that BYOD is a bad idea because it'll result in a ‘legal mess. ' According to Sherman, the benefits of reduced pressure on IT and lower costs are short term gains that don't outweigh the long term risks of a BYOD policy. The first concern Sherman presents is the fact that the employees themselves actually own the devices. This means that if you have to let one go, you can't rid that device of sensitive or proprietary information. You may also run into issues if you want to monitor your employees on their devices for compliance or productivity reasons. Security issues and the threat of intrusion on the corporate network are other big considerations. And, don't forget, what happens if the device fails? Do you provide a backup, or expect employees to handle the replacement as quickly as possible? What does that downtime mean? Sherman advises that these and many other concerns are why you should say no to BYOD.

The Wall Street Journal also collected feedback from some of its WSJ.com readers to get their take on the debate. Here are two snippets that I thought were good points on either side of the argument:

Pro: "I purchased my own iPhone for $200. My employer covers the monthly bill, which adds up to $1,000 a year. In return, I sign a form giving the IT department full rights over all business email and data, including the right to delete the business data if I leave the company. IT doesn't mess with my personal data and email unless I'm dumb enough to lose the phone—then they have the right to kill it. All in all, it seems like a reasonable trade-off." -- Eric Lai

Con: "I think it's amazing that employees are willing to compromise themselves and blur company use with personal use on their own handhelds. Employers are quick to find ways to shift all or a part of this cost to their employees. I can't imagine any intelligent corporate IT person permitting this. The threat of loss of sensitive information is just too great. It would be better to have a BlackBerry for work paid for by the company, and whatever one desires for personal use." -- David Lederman

While there's no clear winning side, one point is obvious – this is a debate you'll be forced to engage in. Whether you like it or not, your employees are going to become more and more tech savvy and likely put increasing amounts of pressure on to be able to use their own devices at work. You'll need to determine what your strategy will be to handle that pressure, and taking a look at this WSJ article is a great place to start (http://on.wsj.com/sNgdGT).