HR professionals are leaning away from BYOD policies and their ensuring headaches, our survey revealed.
HC’s latest poll asked readers if corporate BYOD (bring your own device) policies were more hassle than what they were worth, and 59% confirmed they were, with 40% saying they weren’t.
BYOD policies are a curious animal, with the lines blurring as more employees of companies taking work home on their hard-drives, smartphones (such as email syncing) or through cloud systems.
Chief Learning Officer (CLO) discussed the issues surrounding BYOD. Of primary concern was the issue of sensitive data making it onto the personal device, which is then followed by organisations wiping the phone of all data should the employee leave. As we approach a world where jobs for life are less and less common, this issue is becoming more relevant.
An important take away CLO provided is defining what data belongs to who – does creative content on the phone belong to the organisation, or the employee? Does it depend on when or where it was generated?
In addition, HR should inform terminated or resigned employees their phone will be wiped and data will be lost so they have time to back-up photos, contacts and other personal information that they can load back on once company data has been cleared.
These situations can also be avoided by simply not allowing certain data to be accessed on an employee’s personal device, whether they are at work or otherwise.
“You have to say ‘If this information is the absolute crown jewels of our organisation and it would be irreparable if it was to get out’, then you might have to say ’No, the only place you can access the information is when you are physically in our office’. But I think trying to apply it as a blanket across the organisation is not a sensible approach,” Rajiv Shah, communications, data & security solutions at BAE Systems Detica Australia, told HC.
Do you have BYOD policies in your organisation? Why/why not?
BYOD policies are a curious animal, with the lines blurring as more employees of companies taking work home on their hard-drives, smartphones (such as email syncing) or through cloud systems.
Chief Learning Officer (CLO) discussed the issues surrounding BYOD. Of primary concern was the issue of sensitive data making it onto the personal device, which is then followed by organisations wiping the phone of all data should the employee leave. As we approach a world where jobs for life are less and less common, this issue is becoming more relevant.
An important take away CLO provided is defining what data belongs to who – does creative content on the phone belong to the organisation, or the employee? Does it depend on when or where it was generated?
In addition, HR should inform terminated or resigned employees their phone will be wiped and data will be lost so they have time to back-up photos, contacts and other personal information that they can load back on once company data has been cleared.
These situations can also be avoided by simply not allowing certain data to be accessed on an employee’s personal device, whether they are at work or otherwise.
“You have to say ‘If this information is the absolute crown jewels of our organisation and it would be irreparable if it was to get out’, then you might have to say ’No, the only place you can access the information is when you are physically in our office’. But I think trying to apply it as a blanket across the organisation is not a sensible approach,” Rajiv Shah, communications, data & security solutions at BAE Systems Detica Australia, told HC.
Do you have BYOD policies in your organisation? Why/why not?
