BYOD: the risks and the consequences
Jinfo Blog

By Tim Buckley Owen

Abstract

Employers are keeping an ever closer eye on what their employees get up to, and one reason is the growing Bring Your Own Device to Work or BYOD movement. But the regulation seems to lag behind the technology, and the current disregard for people management is storing up trouble ahead.

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Employers are keeping an ever closer eye on what their employees get up to, and one reason is the growing Bring Your Own Device to Work or BYOD movement. But the regulation seems to lag behind the technology, and the current disregard for people management is storing up trouble ahead.

Digital monitoring of employee behaviour is on the rise, according to the technology analyst Gartner, and one reason is the impact of IT consumerisation – BYOD. Employee surveillance can mitigate risk, Gartner acknowledges, but it can also create it if ethical and legal standards aren’t managed carefully.

A new report from the American law firm Littler Mendelson agrees. “Technology has advanced to the state that our personal and business lives overlap, yet our laws and regulations are years behind,” it says; employers will need to try to minimise the risks it entails and maximise compliance.

The reaction of some bodies to BYOD is simple: “Don’t”. Britain’s Ministry of Defence (according to the Guardian) has instituted a complete ban because it believes the risks to national security would be unthinkable.

But in most large institutions, Littler believes that’s just not feasible – like trying to prohibit dating between co-workers – because employees will increasingly resist carrying a company device in one pocket and a personal device in the other. Nor will setting up a BYOD programme be a one-time event; constant change will require continued diligence and re-examination of the benefits, risks and responsive choices.

This presumes, of course, that the continued blurring of work and leisure implicit in the BYOD movement is desirable, or at least inevitable. Plenty of bosses seem to think it is, according to a Forbes Insight study, The @Work State of Mind.

Technology may have enabled it, but what drives it is the link to professional advancement. Of the 500-plus decision makers surveyed, 40% felt “empowered” by constantly being in touch – although 30% of the European respondents felt “irritated” by the blending of work and personal time.

So where does that leave those lower down the food chain? BYOD may increase your job satisfaction, freed as you are from the shackles of plodding corporate IT. However the downside may be subjection to constant snooping by none too empathetic managers.

Just how unempathetic is revealed in a recent Economist Intelligence Unit report, Plugging the Skills Gap. Despite an ageing workforce and looming skill shortages, senior executives don’t seem to be worried – partly, perhaps, because of their surprising “almost total disregard for the benefits of people management”.

Problems retaining tech savvy people will be an inevitable consequence, the EIU warns. Worryingly, they’re the most likely BYOD enthusiasts, the ones least likely to tolerate intrusion and the most capable of circumventing it.

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