Recently, I’ve written about your customers’ use of smart phones as well as how you can leverage a smart phone in the workplace. Another emerging trend is what’s referred to in a recent series of articles in Information Week publications as the “BYOD Revolution.” BYO is a commonly-accepted acronym for bring your own, and the D here is for device. In most companies, the majority of employees do not have a corporate-issued smart phone, so they have purchased these devices personally. That part of the trend is not particularly worrisome, but problems can easily arise when employees use their personal devices to check their work email, manage company documents, or organize client contacts.
In “Survive the BYOD Revolution,” Finneran outlines seven ways to cope with the influx of employee devices. He starts with a recommendation to carefully consider which employees are eligible for smart phones and to develop specific guidelines for reimbursements. From there, determine which platform to use and outline your support plan. Beyond that, management needs to understand the long-term implications of employee devices: if an employee leaves, will he be allowed to take the device phone number with him, or does the company need to retain it? How will you strengthen the “weak link” (i.e., the users) in your security plan so that information is not compromised? Finally, what is your schedule for reassessing your policies?
Once you’ve determined a plan for distributing and managing corporate smart phones to some employees, you still need to consider the impact of employees using non-corporate devices. Just because you don’t issue them one, certainly doesn’t mean that employees are willing to be left behind in the growing smart phone trend!
In his Practical Analysis article from the November 14 issue, Wittman writes that IT can’t manage employee smart phones in the same way that a corporate phone is managed. It’s a risky business to try to manage an employee’s personal phone when it contains his archive of photos, calendars, contacts, etc. Wittman suggests that the most realistic solution is to set a clear policy and then educate users on acceptable ways to incorporate their personal phones with any work information.
Whether or not your company supplies devices to employees, you still need to consider the ramifications that this BYOD Revolution can have on your workplace!
 Kelly has been working as a contract technical writer for Inova Solutions for nearly three years. As a recovering high school English teacher, she enjoys the opportunity to still employ her ‘red ink’ when writing, editing, and formatting documentation. You can contact Kelly at kelly@insideinova.com.
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