Tech aficionados’ dream: bring your own device to work

Remember the good ol’ days? The days where you were judged on your work performance by the degree of darkness outside when you stumbled in – and out – of work.

Where your dedication to the job was assessed on one simple factor: your line manager could see you. As long as you were in the office at 8am, hunched over your desk with your forehead knitted into an expression of fierce concentration, you could indulge in Candy Crush to your heart’s content.

Aren’t you glad those days are over? Well, perhaps not quite over, but it’s apparent that over the past few years there’s been a rise in a more mobile workforce. This increased desire for flexi time comes hand-in-hand with what the tech aficionados call, BYOD (bring your own device).

Gaynor MacArthur, sales director at Digicape – a premium Apple reseller and total solutions provider, agrees that the traditional organisational model is in a state of flux. “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.”

BYOD, where employees bring personally owned devices to their place of work and use them to access company resources, is part of this new wave of greater mobility. The global BYOD market is projected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 25% between 2014 and 2019, according to Information Management.

“And it’s not just employees who profit, says MacArthur. “BYOD makes 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.

Cisco reported a 33% increase in employee satisfaction when it allowed BYOD. – Citizen reporter