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Bring your own device (BYOD) policies are becoming more common in business, and it’s likely that all companies will start adopting their own policies soon enough. Employees prefer to use devices that they’re familiar with and set them up in the way that they like. It’s good for productivity because people will work more effectively on their own devices and it is a good idea to start looking at your own policy if you haven’t already. BYOD is inevitable, and it will be the norm for all businesses eventually, so you need to start thinking about it now. These are some of the most important rules to remember when you’re implementing BYOD in your business.
Choose Devices Carefully
Some businesses are better suited to BYOD than others so it’s important that you assess your own company and work out which devices you should allow people to bring and which devices should be supplied by the company. For example, if an employee uses a phone occasionally for work, but it’s not an essential part of their work, they can just bring their own. However, if they’re reliant on it and they use it to access and store a lot of sensitive company data, it’s not quite as simple. The laws aren’t quite clear on who owns data, even company data on a personal device like that, and that could cause problems for you in the future. You need to think about what the benefits and drawbacks of an employee bringing their own device are, and if the negatives outweigh the positives, don’t allow it.
Focus On Security
Security is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to BYOD. You should already be putting a lot of investment into online security for the office systems, but you don’t have any guarantees when people are bringing their own devices to work with them. That’s a big problem if people are accessing sensitive company data on their devices so you need to make sure that all devices are secure. Before you allow anybody to start using their own devices, you need to call in IT services and have them set up security on all of them (visit MXOtech for more information on this). It’s vital that you do this before employees start using their devices to access company documents, otherwise, you’re putting yourself at risk.
Make Sure Operating Systems Are Compatible
It’s important that employees are using devices that are compatible with the office computers, otherwise, you’ll end up with a lot of issues when trying to send files and collaborate on projects. If the operating systems aren’t compatible and the devices can’t work seamlessly with one another, productivity will suffer. If possible, you should make sure that all employees are using devices with the same operating system that you use in the office. You can also use software that is compatible with different operating systems so even if people aren’t using the same one, they can still use any software that they need to without any problems.
Bring your own device can make employees more productive and benefit your business, but only if you implement it properly.
