Increasing Acceptance but Data Security continues to be a deterrent in implementation of BYOD Policies: Wisdomjobs.com survey
Wisdomjobs.com, one of India’s leading end to end online recruitment and career solutions portals, today released the outcome/results of its survey - Impact of BYOD policies on productivity. The extensive survey was conducted across the country in 8 cities; Hyderabad, NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune & Ahmedabad, covering the IT, ITeS, Telecom, Education, Media, BFSI, Engineering and Manufacturing sectors. The Survey also throws light on the views of implementation of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies at the workplaces and the benefits associated with it.
There has been an increasing acceptance of BYOD policies amongst the corporate world as they play a critical role in improving employee productivity, especially through the usage of smart-devices for work. BYOD policies use a risk-based approach to define data that is and isn’t allowed to leave the internal network. Therefore, the corporates need to be clear about their BYOD protocols before implementing the policy. While in majority of cases, usage outside the network does not go beyond emails and presentations, sensitive information such as financial or proprietary data must be subject to strict controls. There is always a risk of data loss when employees are sending sensitive documents to their personal devices, or making copies and storing them across multiple devices.
Ajay Kolla, Founder and CEO – Wisdomjobs.com said, “With BYOD policies gaining increasing traction in organizations, companies are opening up to the benefits of allowing their employees to carry their own devices to work. Additionally, the burden of supplying, supporting and maintaining the devices is shifting from the organization to the employees, who in turn are more comfortable working on devices of their choice. It also does away with the time wasted in switching between devices when an employee is at work.”
Below are the detailed findings of the survey
The employer viewpoint:
More than 25% of companies surveyed have BYOD polices in place
20% of the companies said they are not sure of the fallouts of implementing a BYOD policy
Nearly 50% of the companies with BYOD policies said that they had sufficient safeguards to minimize the risk of data loss while 20% felt that their data security policies could be improved
While all companies with BYOD policies offered support for Android devices, only 15% of those surveyed supported BYOD on iOS or Blackberry
The industries that have the highest prevalence of BYOD are IT/ITeS, Media, Education and Telecom
Among the companies that have not implemented BYOD, more than 70% mentioned data security as the biggest constraint nearly 20% mentioned telecom expense management as a concern
As a whole the major concerns regarding BYOD as mentioned by companies participating in the survey were: Data leakage or loss (70%), Unauthorized access (50%), Network security (35%), and Cost management (22%)
Nearly 40% of the companies opined that BYOD policies can result in increased productivity
Over 39 % respondents believe that they need to follow the organization security protocols when they work under the restrictions of a BYOD policy.
What the employees say:
The most common use of BYOD devices by employees was for: email (90%), calendars and contacts access (65%), document access (40%), and access to the company’s intranet (35%)
32% of those surveyed felt that bringing their own device allows them flexibility in their role
28% opined that BYOD increases their productivity
23% felt that it increases work satisfaction
20% say that they are more resourceful in solving problems with their own devices
16% of those surveyed said that they are more likely to work for organizations that have BYOD policies
43% of the respondents said that they as they never transferred work-related data to personal devices; 29 % transfer only non-sensitive data to their personal devices while only 15% transfer all kinds of data to their personal devices
While nearly 40% of those surveyed have experienced a security issue on their devices, only 30% of them felt that they have an obligation to inform their company about it
Conclusion
While companies view the BYOD policy as a necessary evil in some cases, and an unnecessary risk in other instances, a significant number of employees differ in their viewpoints and are seeing the benefits of implementing it. From productivity benefits to a hassle-free working experience, there are several reasons why employees are in favor of companies implementing BYOD policies.