No, BYOD doesn’t stand for ‘bring your own drink’ (you’re thinking of BYOB, and it’s probably not the best policy to have in your office). BYOD stands for ‘bring your own device’, and it’s been gaining a lot of popularity in offices across the country in recent years.
BYOD is probably something you may think you already have in your business to some extent. After all, your employees probably do bring their own devices to work already, right? But are your employees actually using those devices for the benefit of your business? And what are the benefits, anyway?
Y BYOD?
Buying all your own tech gear for a business, such as tablets and laptops, can get incredibly expensive. But when employees bring their own tablets and laptops, you save a lot of money. Employees will also have a lot more familiarity with the devices they’re using, which can increase both satisfaction and productivity by quite some margin. More devices in the office also means more flexibility, which makes it easier for people to complete tasks away from their desk or even at home. There are a lot of benefits to staying in the loop in this way!
Device risks
Of course, you have to balance any benefits with a range of problems that come with BYOD. The biggest problem of all, for many employees, is that they are risking their devices by bringing them to work. Not only are they traveling to and from work with them, but their devices become susceptible to many problems to which your own technology is susceptible. If your network isn’t adequately protected, for example, then this can have dangerous implications on your employees’ devices. Read more about business Internet security at https://www.entrepreneur.com/. For this reason, many employees may resent having to bring their own device. This is why, though it saves you money, you should never make it mandatory that employees do this.
Bandwidth
When the number of Internet-connected devices in your office increase, the pressure your office’s Internet increases accordingly. A lot of bandwidth ends up being used. You can help tackle this by ensuring that the Internet in your office is as fast and reliable as possible. You can read more about this at http://www.eir.co.uk/. You can also ease the problem by ensuring that these devices aren’t being used en masse to do things like stream music; if employees must listen to music through these devices, try to make sure they’re using offline music sources to avoid a slowing down of your overall speed.
Work requirements
You may find that BYOD results in a plethora of really powerful devices being used in the office without you having to have forked out for such great technology. On the other hand, you may end up with a lot of inefficient devices that ultimately hamper productivity. You can read more about assessing the tech needs of your business at https://www.bizfilings.com/. Once you know your needs, don’t be tempted to sacrifice efficiency just to save money on devices. If someone’s device isn’t up to the task, you should provide them with something that is.