More organizations are allowing mobile tech in the workplace

Increasingly, employers are telling workers, “Bring your own device.” Often abbreviated as BYOD, the term means that workers can use personal mobile devices -- such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets -- at the office. In addition, some companies are OK with employees who take work-based devices home to continue moving forward on projects.Recent reports show how the enterprise technology landscape is changing—and if you love smartphones and other mobile devices, it’s great news indeed.Consider the following statistics as you think about what your workplace might look like in the future:Fast Fact: 53 percent of full-time employed mobile device users are familiar with the term BYOD That’s according to a recent study commissioned by CTIA. Among other findings of the study:

• More than 4 in 10 use a smartphone or tablet each week for work-related info or applications
• The company information most frequently accessed from mobile devices includes email, schedules and calendars, databases and corporate apps

Fast Fact: 63 percent of employers allow at least some employees to work occasional regular paid hours at homeThat’s according to the 2012 National Study of Employers. Additionally, 33 percent of companies allow some workers to work some regular paid hours at home on a regular basis. For workers with smartphones, that translates to greater flexibility even when outside of the office.Fast Fact: 38 percent of companies will stop providing devices to workers by 2016That statistic comes from Gartner, which goes on to say that the figure isn’t bad at all. Rather, it will create opportunities for business owners and workers in the form of increased employee satisfaction (because they'll be working on the devices they like best) and reduced or eliminated costs. In fact, we're moving closer to their prediction that half of employers will require employees to use their own devices for some of their workday.At this time, most businesses using BYOD are mid-size to large – but in the future,  small companies will benefit from the practice because it reduces overhead costs.What does all of this mean? There will be an increased need for solid tech expertise to manage and support mobile use. "The risk of data leakage on mobile platforms is particularly acute. Some mobile devices are designed to share data in the cloud and have no general purpose file system for applications to share, increasing the potential for data to be easily duplicated between applications and moved between applications and the cloud." (Gartner)If your organization is already making use of mobile devices, or is ready to make the leap, please get in touch with us for the expertise you will need to set great tech management policies!