Should employees ‘Bring Your Own Device’ for work? (BYOD)

What is Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

Have you heard of the term ‘Bring Your Own Device’, also known as BYOD? This is where employees would use their own devices for the purpose of working for their company. Staff would access company data using personal devices such as phones, laptops, tablets and desktop computers.

With the relatively recent change to home working and the constant pressure for organisations to be more cost effective, many businesses have adopted the idea of BYOD.

The positives of BYOD

There are positives for BYOD, that is why it has proven to become so popular, especially in the past few years. Some of these are:

• Reduces costs to the business if staff can use devices that they already have
• Staff are familiar with their own devices and systems, so employees are comfortable using it
• More care would be taken with a personal device than a company issued devices
• If an employee leaves the business the company don’t have to worry about trying to recall devices they’ve let out
• Enables employees to work flexibly between office and remote working
• Increases productivity in employees

But is BYOD really a good idea? What are the implications of allowing employees to use their own personal devices for work? Let’s take a quick look at the challenges and the security risks attached to BYOD.

The challenges of BYOD

Using personal devices for work can raise a series of challenges. Some of these are:

• Personal devices (and the owners of the devices) need to comply with company policies and procedures
• Using personal devices can increase the amount of support an organisation needs to give users
• Company data needs to be protected
• Protection of the personal privacy of the device owner
• Ensuring legal compliance is met

These challenges can be overcome though. The next point to look at are the negatives of BYOD.

The negatives of BYOD

• The IT support needed to manage private devices will be more complex due to different devices and operating systems
• Much higher security risks. With cyber attacks on the rise this could be a chink in your company’s armour.
• Lack of management for personal devices when it comes to software, security, and security patching
• Potential loss of data if files are not being backed up appropriately
• Loss of privacy for both the company and the employee
• Not all employees may have their own device

The bottom line

As with anything, BYOD has many pros and cons. This isn’t something you should be rushing into and a decision that should not be solely based on cost and convenience. It has a knock-on effect and can create issues down the line with things such as privacy, compliance, data safeguarding, IT support and your overall company security.

If you need any assistance with your devices or IT support, please reach out or find more on our website:

https://www.pstechnology.co.uk/it-services/it-managed-services/