Allowing workers greater flexibility ‘makes them more productive’
THE TRADITIONAL workforce is in a state of flux and employees are demanding more flexibility as their work/life balance becomes increasingly important, resulting in companies investigating new ways to promote better employee engagement.
This includes permitting employees to work from their own devices or work remotely, said Gaynor Macarthur, the sales director at Digicape, a premium Apple reseller and total solutions provider.
Macarthur said the trend was not going away any time soon and in fact the global BYOD (bring you own device) market was projected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent over the next few years (between 2014 and 2019).
She said while that might sound great in theory, BYOD and the employment of a more mobile workforce was not without its risks.
“The 21st century workforce demands a more flexible model. There’s a greater emphasis on work-life balance, with employees seeking to be evaluated on their output and delivery rather than hours on the clock. As a result, companies are re-envisioning their organisational structures to implement systems that better support this new style of working.”
She said BYOD was not just beneficial for employees, it made an attractive case for companies too.
“While many articles cite decreased costs for the employer as the largest advantage, further reports have shown that those less obvious may be the most beneficial long term.”
Macarthur said Cisco reported a 33 percent increase in employee satisfaction when it allowed BYOD, while another survey indicated that mobile workers were clocking around 240 more hours each year than those office bound, as revealed in a Capgemini Consulting report. When employees have agency over the selection of their device, tech innovator Apple come out tops.
She said IBM decided to offer employees the choice to move from PC to Mac in 2015, when their company kit needed upgrading. When given the option to choose for themselves, 73 percent of employees chose Mac, and the company subsequently reported 91 percent user satisfaction.
“Aside from Apple technology’s pull power, it makes sense from a productivity and systems management perspective, as Mac’s superior OS software means that the Apple system requires far fewer updates than Windows.”
Macarthur said the biggest concern with BYOD was security, as company data could be compromised and not every device might have the same stringent software an employer would install and thus be more susceptible to viruses.
She said Apple, with its superior privacy policies and rich Mobile Device Management (MDM) infrastructure, once again came out tops for data security and virus protection. With technology that constantly monitored and encrypted, the risk of infection was mitigated.
“Thanks to these advancements in the tech sphere, BYOD is not only making sense from a bottom line perspective, but also in terms of talent attraction and retention. BYOD communicates that employees are trusted in making their own decisions and their needs are prioritised. As long as the company’s privileged information is protected and a robust infrastructure is in place to mitigate threats, companies will reap the rewards of a more flexible working environment.”