Launching a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program has implications for more than just the technological capabilities of your company: it can also impact employee morale and the tone of the workplace. Taking the time to create a reliable, sustainable BYOD solution could provide tangible benefits in the workplace in the form of better productivity and company culture.
An article for StateTech looked at the way that different government agencies have reacted to the rise of device use in a casual, everyday context. If handled effectively, using a mobile device grants individual workers greater efficiency and helps them save time, both benefits that could lead them to feel better about their work in general.
An example mentioned in this article is the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, which provided iPads to its employees last year to help them work more efficiently outside the office. A state official said that higher morale as reported by the worker was an "unforeseen benefit" of BYOD.
In SC Magazine, Alan Hartwell of EMEA at Oracle also made reference to the impact of devices in the workplace, but like others, he made the point that employees are likely to use their own devices no matter what and that companies should focus on keeping proper identity management policies in place.
"If businesses and employees are to truly trust the use of personal devices in the workplace, there needs to be a strict separation between personal and private data," he writes. "Mobile device management is great for securing information and hardware on a device, but it lacks finesse, securing everything and anything."
Applying consistent rules to all of the screen-based devices being used in your enterprise is easier with a web based terminal emulator, especially when it comes to adapting older applications so they operate in a browser.