Just a few years ago, it was all too common for many employees – especially in the government sector – to have more than one mobile phone. One was for work, and the other was a personal device. It was akin to a separation of church and state, and employers discouraged the use of work calls on the personal devices, and some forbid any personal calls on the business phone.

For some workers it wasn’t just phones.

There were work-issued tablets, laptops, desktops (for those who often did work from home) and even USB devices. That presented challenges for those who traveled for work, as it meant lugging around two of everything in many cases. That changed as the business world began to embrace the concept of “Bring your device” or BYOD.

While that certainly lightened the load for workers, not everyone was onboard, especially the IT department, which had to set up personal devices to gain access to work-related systems and potentially sensitive or confidential data. However, increasingly BYOD has been widely adopted – and even the U.S. Army tested a pilot program that allowed members of the National Guard to use personal devices with email and other collaboration tools.

That pilot program followed the successful run of the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) commercial virtual remote environment that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. It allowed all DoD personnel to access official information from anywhere on their personal devices.

BYOD The New Normal

Across industries, BYOD is part of the new normal.

“Most employers’ focus has shifted a bit during the past two years. Originally, BYOD trends reflected a generational shift in the workforce, as a way to attract or appease younger employees and prospects who preferred highly mobile devices, including laptops, smartphones and tablets to traditional desktop PCs,” explained technology industry analyst Charles King of Pund-IT. “That created inherent challenges for IT departments in regards to making sure that devices used offsite were properly maintained, upgraded and secured but things mostly seemed to work out.”

The pandemic changed everything.

“Flash forward to now and both the mechanics of work from home (WFH) and necessary devices have shifted,” King told ClearanceJobs. “Workers need access to laptops and other devices capable of supporting quality video functions and collaboration tools. Plus, increasingly sophisticated cybercrime has spotlighted the importance of security solutions and services more brightly than ever before. Businesses have gotten a great deal of help from trusted client vendors, including Dell, Lenovo and HP but I expect that BYOD challenges and benefits will both continue to evolve.”

The Pros and Cons of BYOD

A BYOD strategy has been noted to have several advantages including higher employee productivity; as according to a study that shows a 16% boost in productivity over a 40-hour workweek. In addition, there can be increased employee effectiveness due to more comfort and speed in employees working with their own devices, as well as increased employee job satisfaction and retention through supporting flexible work arrangement.

Another advantage is that an organization can often see upgraded technologies that are integrated into the workplace without IT spending for new hardware, software licensing, and device maintenance.

“Advantages to BYOD are lower capital costs, pushing support costs onto the employee, reducing support costs, and tighter coupling between what the employee is using and their duties and responsibilities,” suggested Rob Enderle, technology analyst and principal of the Enderle Group.

“Disadvantages are increased downtime; if the company retains support responsibilities, those costs increase, and a greater risk the hardware has been compromised, creating security exposures,” Enderle told ClearanceJobs.

“In larger companies, the costs often exceed the benefits; in smaller firms that don’t have support organizations, they don’t seem to worry about the security exposure,” Enderle added. “The support costs are effectively outsourced to the hardware providers anyway. Larger enterprises and government entities monitor communications and PC use as a matter of policy and have many mechanisms to do this (including network and email host monitoring), so you assume you are being monitored if you are on a government network regardless of whether you bought your PC or not.”

Necessary Steps to Take

To address the security concerns, it is recommended that IT departments create a defined BYOD security policy that can inform and educate employees how to use their devices without compromising organizational data or networks. This can include a set list of approved devices; security and data ownership polices; and the levels of IT support granted to personal devices, if any.

In addition, IT must determine the level of support they will apply to personal devices, and to ensure a balance between organizational security and employees’ personal privacy.

Who is Watching?

While it is an agency’s or organization’s IT department that often voices some security concerns, there is also the threat that the IT department could provide a way for superiors – including those in the government – to spy on the employees.

This is not new to BYOD, but it certainly increases the possibility for employees to be monitored – from what they see online to the emails they sent and potentially even where they go.

“The digital surveillance of workers by their employers has been an issue since at least the 1990s when businesses began adopting Internet-connected PCs,” explained Pund-IT’s King. “At that time, it was common to hear execs grumble about workers wasting time on eBay auctions, online shopping, etc. Similar complaints cropped up with the rise of social sites and, again, with new messaging apps and services like TikTok.”

Now there are dozens of apps, services and solutions that allow employers in both the private and public sectors to keep track of employees’ actions and practices.

“From a practical standpoint, wise workers should assume that the boss is usually looking over their shoulders, at least in a virtual sense,” added King. “Ironically, employers continue to complain or be concerned about laggardly employees despite the fact that workers and workplaces today are far more efficient and productive than they have ever been. Partly that’s due to the increasingly automated tools and products that businesses have purchased. But it seems that all too many employers forget that it takes a well-trained, motivated and conscientious workforce to make the most of those solutions.”

Related News

Peter Suciu is a freelance writer who covers business technology and cyber security. He currently lives in Michigan and can be reached at petersuciu@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.