BYOD–Bring Your Own Device–is a thing at a lot of companies, especially small ones. Everyone already has a smartphone and a laptop, so why not have your employees use those instead? Well, there are lots of things to think about. Over at The Balance I give a run down of the pros and cons of being a BYOD workplace.
So, to read, click here: Pros and Cons of a Bring Your Own Device Workplace
Good article, but don’t forget the implications of hourly employees using their own devices and how it can impact in states like California.
Good article – from the employer’s perspective.
As an employee, you better be offering me some kind of financial compensation to pay for all of the wear and tear I’m putting on MY device for the employer’s benefit.
Actually, I’d think twice about working for someone that expects me to use my own equipment. It’s just too hard to separate out the percentage used for work and the percentage used for personal – as far as wear and tear, making a case for reimbursements or replacements, etc.
And your phone number is now associated with the business. What happens after you leave the company? How many calls are you going to get from irate customers that you no longer care about?
There are already tax rules for similar use of a private vehicle for business, it should be easy to extend to devices.
The bigger question is the data. You use your computer for business, doing more than telecommuting (where you VPN into work from home and use the companies assets). Now you leave; what about the documents you created and all the little ways they stay on your computer? Or the company winds up in a legal dispute and your personal computer or phone is taken away for evidence?
I can understand a company wanting to do this, but overall a really bad idea.
I totally agree, the demands of the present day workforce, should not be shared on personal equipment no matter. People trade in personal equipment more quickly to keep getting the new technology, which may not be totally needed for work needs.
Certain corporations used a pre-formatted program based on the equipment of their company. Let’s take for example— the equipment computers and phones used by the White House. It has the latest version of technology best suited to the high level of security needed. But the equipment is not new technology. Until that equipment is replaced by approval of the government, every new administration has to learn to deal with the technology available to maintain security.
I feel if the job calls for the personnel to use work equipment to perform job, no one should complain about the hassle of using “older equipment “.
There is actually an easy (and not very expensive) technical solution to that. The company can get a separate phone number that forwards to the employee’s personal number, but belongs to the company. Require that phone number be used on all business correspondence (like business cards), and when the employee leaves, change where it forwards to.
(The same should be done on email addresses – if the employees wants to keep all their email in one place, have the official company account forward to their personal email – but you really want to keep copies of *everything* for most jobs, and are often required to by law, so don’t set it up as a straight alias.)
There are software solutions to the need to wipe company data when an employee leaves, too, but they’re not nearly as reliable.
All in all, I’d agree it’s a bad idea, unless a) the employee requests it, and b) there is a great deal of trust in both directions.
(And the point about employers having to pay for personal devices used for work purposes is on point, too.)
Also, if you’re dealing with company records, a lot of companies when you quit, want to wipe the equipment.
If you have your phone syncing to the cloud, what do you do about company stuff that’s there? And I wouldn’t want to lose all the personal things I have.
So no. I wouldn’t want to work for a company that wants me to use my own device unless they have a fool proof way to separate out the company business from my personal stuff, when I leave them.
The only way I would use my personal hardware for business would be if I were allowed to work from home, either on a regular basis — say, one day per week — or ad hoc, when sick, for example, or when the workplace is unavailable due to inclement weather, a power outage, etc. Otherwise, the employer needs to provide the devices.
If I own a device, I keep the admin privileges. That means that no-one else installs software on my computer, has the ability to access it remotely, or the power to lock or wipe it. If an employer is okay with having no access to my computer, and letting me choose the device and OS then I’m willing to use it for work. If they want to administer it, monitor it, or wipe it, they buy it.