When a company decides to implement the BYOD policy, this means the company would allow its employees to bring their own devices to work. The employees are allowed to use their devices for any work function, and in some cases, might even be compensated for it; since the employee is the one providing the working asset.
In this article, we would highlight the pros and cons of this policy, and you can decide if it is suitable for use in your company, or if it suits you as an employee.
Pros
The employer saves money: As an employer, you have one less thing to worry about when your employees bring the devices they use at work from home. You don’t have to worry about provides devices like computers and Chromebooks for your employees. You can spend that money on providing fast and secure internet connection for your company. Also, your employees get to maintain their own devices themselves, though you might still have to pay for maintenance depending on the policy implemented.
Happier and contented employees: When your workers get to use the devices that they bought by themselves, they tend to be more comfortable when using it. Most people purchase devices that they are happy with, and they would find it easier to navigate a device that they are already familiar with. This way, your workers don’t have to deal with the low budget version devices of the devices that the company would most likely provide for them.
Newer devices would enhance productivity: with the use of the latest gadgets, your employees would have access to devices with high processing power and most likely fast storage too. This would enhance the productivity of your company significantly, as they can easily have access to the information that they need.
Cons
Compatibility issues: There is a very high probability that most of your employees would use different types of devices that feature different operating systems. This would tend to bring some compatibility issues when it comes to the operation of some company software. You can have problems like, wrong configurations, conflicting platforms, devices that cannot run required software, unsupported protocol, inadequate access rights, etc. Issues like this can be a nightmare to your IT team, since, the fix for one device might be different for another.
Privacy and security: Some might even argue that this is the primary thing wrong with BYOD. When a worker is allowed to store company information on their devices, then it becomes vulnerable to penetration attacks from the outside. Also, the employee’s information becomes company information. Therefore, in companies where it required that the employee device be accessible remotely by the system, then the employee information can be exploited. Also, the company can no longer be sure that all their high-value information is fully protected when the employee leaves the workplace.
The danger of losing personal files: In cases where a company uses software with ActiveSync policies, an employee’s data might be erased remotely. Also, in the case of a legal Problem, the employee device might get seized for checking, or as evidence.
You should, therefore, weigh the advantages and disadvantages of implementing a BYOD policy for your company before applying one.