Managing a BYOD Policy

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is a concept that continues to grow in popularity. Allowing employees to bring their own devices to work has its advantages. It allows businesses to mobilise their workforce, without the hardware costs involved in doing so. Businesses can benefit from an entire fleet of business mobiles – or, increasingly, tablets – without having to pay for, or maintain, these devices. Many businesses also report productivity increases as a result of a BYOD policy, and this is often put down to workers being more comfortable in the usage of their devices on top of the increased flexibility they enjoy. However, despite the potential advantages of BYOD, there are many potential drawbacks. In order for a BYOD policy to be effective, it needs to be properly planned and managed. In this article, we offer a few tips on managing a successful BYOD policy.

Have a clear objective – and stick to it!

Implementing a BYOD policy is not a decision that should be taken lightly. You need to have a primary objective in mind – whether your intention is to increase user satisfaction with the aim of enhancing productivity, reducing hardware costs or expanding your fleet of business mobiles – you need to be specific in your objectives and use these as a measure against which you can monitor the progress of your project. It may be that unforeseen costs outweigh the benefits of your BYOD project and, in which case, it may not be worth continuing.

Take measures to protect company data

This is probably the most important point. BYOD brings data security risks if not properly managed. You need to take steps to protect your company data including educating employees, enforcing user ID’s and passwords and adequate encryption of your data. Make sure that you have device management software that enables you to remotely wipe devices, should they be lost or stolen. It’s also important to have procedures in place for ensuring that employees leaving your company will no longer have access to certain privileges, business apps and company data. It is possible to wipe company related apps and data from former employees’ devices without affecting the rest of their personal device, so make sure this is a practice that is strictly adhered to.

It’s also worth considering whether you should have control over what can and cannot be done on devices used for work purposes. However, bear in mind that this could present its own problems – when your employees have invested their own money in devices that they also enjoy for personal use, they are likely to have reservations about usage being controlled and restricted.

Set rules about device and OS requirements

There is potential to run into all sorts of problems when your employees are using many different devices. Different devices have different operating systems and varying capabilities. This can potentially impede collaboration and you may even find that your company’s software is not compatible across such a wide range of platforms. The performance of apps can also vary depending on the OS. In order for your BYOD policy to run smoothly, and to ensure maximum performance, you may have to consider restricting the type of devices that you will allow under your policy. Due to its open format, many companies don’t allow Android devices under their BYOD policy as they believe them to be more susceptible to attack. Other companies insist upon devices being upgraded to the latest OS update, to ensure maximum performance. Consider what will work best for your business and set rules accordingly.