BYOD Implementation: How is it beneficial to employees‍

The concept of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) has boomed over the past few years, with BYOD adoption rising dramatically in the corporate world. Because personal devices being used for official work are becoming increasingly popular, companies have taken the initiative to integrate their own systems, software, tools, and networks with their employees' devices. 

Several IT companies collaborated on a study that surveyed over 800 companies. BYOD was cited as a key driver due to higher employee mobility (63%), satisfaction (56%), and productivity (55%). 

The BYOD concept consists of employees being able to work from their own portable devices to accomplish their daily tasks. 

Why? 

First of all, it decreases company costs as they won’t need to invest to buy portable devices and deploy them among employees. Second, it provides more flexibility for employees as they can work from anywhere and at their own convenience. It boosts their motivation and productivity drastically. Also, it is also believed that employees tend to work more efficiently since they are familiar with their mobile devices and they won’t need to juggle between two or more devices to execute their official tasks.

Yet BYOD has not been welcomed by all organizations, as some are reluctant to adopt it. In a survey, 39% of participants cited security concerns as a reason for delaying the adoption of BYOD.

There are several actions that organizations can take to resolve this issue. We will discuss that later. Before we do, here are some of the biggest advantages of allowing employees to bring their own devices into their workplace.

5 Major Advantages of BYOD Implementation and its benefits

BYOD is a concept wherein the employees are encouraged to use their personal devices such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets to connect to the corporate network and execute day-to-day tasks.

Due to the flexibility this trend provides, it is very popular among businesses across diversified domains such as Retail, Healthcare, Education, Transportation & Logistics, etc.

A survey shows that 85% of companies are adopting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

The following are some of the benefits of BYOD implementation:

1. Boosts Employee Productivity

According to a Bullock study, approximately 42% of employees whose devices were allowed to be used at work found that they were more productive and efficient.

The following are some factors contributing to high productivity:

A. Less Training

Since employees spend a lot of non-working time on their own devices, they have higher knowledge of their operating systems, functions, etc. As a result, they don't need to be tutored with new devices or their functionality by the organizations. Especially if the organization is deploying its own devices among employees.

B. More Customization

Employees have a greater level of freedom in designing and modifying the devices they own as per their preferences. Employees can customize the exterior body as well as the interior functionalities of their laptops or smartphones to suit their style, thus improving their productivity and experience. 

For instance, an employee using a laptop who wants to run multiple programs at once can upgrade the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB as per their discretion. Furthermore, employees can also purchase their own devices or upgrade their existing devices to new models as per their needs (personal as well as professional purposes) if they satisfy their requirements. 

The use of a 360-degree foldable laptop may be advantageous for a graphic designer, for example. It may, however, be prohibitively expensive for the organization. 

C. Convenience

With an employee-owned device, employees can easily access all the corporate data, enterprise managed mobility solutions, and other work-related resources in one place. Using the same device, they can also navigate between tabs, attend meetings, and access their personal email accounts, etc.

They can thus maintain their work-life balance without having to switch between devices and save the time otherwise spent juggling.

For instance, employees who listen to music while performing their day-to-day tasks are more likely to use an iPod instead of downloading music apps on their corporate-owned laptops. Their focus will be distracted from their work if they manage two devices simultaneously, thus hampering their level of productivity. 

BYOD allows employees to download their own favorite music apps to their personal laptops or smartphones so that they can listen to music while working without being interrupted.
 

D. Saves Time

A study conducted by Mordor Intelligence indicates that BYOD saves employees 37 minutes every week. 

In what way?

Employee-owned mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets make it possible for employees to communicate with clients, schedule meetings, adjust shifts based on leave, etc., on the go. BYOD allows employees to respond to emails immediately instead of waiting for them to get to the office. 

As a result, employees are able to accomplish official tasks faster, allowing them to maintain a balance between work and personal life.

2. Higher Employee Satisfaction 

The BYOD policy enables employees to work remotely and on their own schedules, giving them greater control over their work. Consequently, employee satisfaction and engagement increase significantly. 

By using their personal portable devices to execute official work, employees can conduct official business outside the office perimeter too. In this way, they can work overtime from home in order to meet official deadlines. 

Employees can also conveniently switch between tasks to accommodate urgent personal tasks in between, as they use the same device for official and personal work (as long as the BYOD policy permits it). As a result, employee morale and satisfaction are further heightened.

3. The ability to use new technologies and devices

In general, employees have a tendency to keep their personal devices updated since they are more attached to them. Additionally, they also tend to upgrade their existing devices by investing in the latest smart devices once they become available in the market. 

Consider a scenario in which an employee working as a graphic designer in an organization upgrades their standard device to an iPad Pro to enhance their work experience, for example. 

If the organization where the graphic designer is employed allows them to bring their own devices, then the employee can leverage certain advanced features such as high edge-to-edge display quality to understand their present projects in much better resolution — something that is not available on most company-owned devices. 

4. Easier Communication

Since employees do not have their work devices with them after working hours, they will not be able to check their corporate emails or messages. When an urgent situation arises after working hours, their colleagues may find difficulty connecting and communicating with their co-workers. 

BYOD, however, gives employees the option of keeping in touch with other co-workers whenever they need it with their own personal devices (even after working hours).

5. Reduces Pressure on Support Teams 

By adopting a BYOD policy, employers become less responsible for the devices used by their employees to conduct the day-to-day activity. Likewise, since the devices are owned by the employees, the responsibility of maintaining the same also falls under the hand of the employees.

In addition, since it will be the responsibility of the employees to update any app(s) or the system itself on their own, the support teams will not be burdened with the same.

By doing this, the IT department is relieved of much of its workload. This will further empower them to concentrate on critical tasks such as maintaining data security or making sure that the enterprise software is running as smoothly as possible. 

In closing lines

In analyzing the benefits of BYOD implementation in an organization and how it benefits employees as well as the organization in some respects, such as flexibility, easier communication, higher employee satisfaction, etc., it becomes apparent why BYOD adoption has been on the rise. 

Despite the appeal of BYOD, it is important for businesses not to overlook the risks associated with enabling access to corporate data beyond the office perimeter. 

In our introduction to this blog post, we stated that corporate security concerns are the main reason why companies do not implement BYOD. Implementing Mobile Device Management (MDM) in business is one of the solutions to this issue.

An MDM solution allows the business to secure the corporate data, even if it’s on an employee’s phone. With an MDM solution in place, IT admins can enroll the BYO devices over-the-air containing corporate data and manage them securely. They can further safeguard sensitive data against cybercriminals and potential threats by establishing and applying BYOD policies, compliances, rules, and regulations. IT can further safeguard the data by preventing the employees from accessing certain URL(s) or downloading any applications in an unauthorized manner. Furthermore, they can perform a remote wipe on BYO-devices (only the corporate data) in the event if the data is leaked, compromised, or the device is lost or stolen.

To build robust BYOD policies without straining enterprise IT professionals, an MDM solution can provide extensive capabilities to create secure BYOD environments and their implementation.