Bringing a personal mobile phone, tablet or laptop into a workplace has become commonplace. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, flexible and remote working has led to a rise in employees using their own personal devices to work from, or aid with daily work tasks.
While this is becoming the norm, what is the effect of employees bringing their own devices into the workplace? And what are the pros and cons of BYOD?
You may have heard the acronym previously, but what is BYOD? It stands for ‘Bring Your Own Device’ and it is defined by employees using their own personal device(s) for work purposes, usually due to an organisation allowing this usage and implementing a BYOD policy.
Employees could be using their personal devices for a whole host of reasons and activities, from accessing emails, connecting to the corporate network, accessing corporate apps, data and more.
A BYOD work policy outlines what a company views as an acceptable use of technology in the workplace, how employees may operate it and how they can protect their devices and the company from cyber threats, data breaches and hacking.
In order for BYOD to be successful in the workplace, it is critical to have a well-defined BYOD policy in place, as well as understand and balance up the risks and benefits of BYOD. Employees must agree to this policy document before implementation.
When deciding whether you should implement a BYOD policy in the workplace, you’ll want to weigh up the pros and cons and make sure that there aren’t any business risks involved.