With the rise in remote teams over the last year, deciding whether to encourage your employees to use their own device, or to invest in company-owned devices is a decision many businesses currently face.
Although many believe that company-owned devices are an expensive route to take, there are many benefits to equipping your employees with company equipment for their remote workspace. Alternatively, a bring-your-own-device policy, or BYOD, can be beneficial to so many businesses, depending on the size of the company.
BYOD: What Does It Mean for Compliance?
Although BYOD is a great concept for scaling companies, it often falls short of compliance standards. From the quality of the devices your team members choose, to the security measures they have in place, there are many aspects to consider when it comes to the safety of your business.
Educate your employees before either sending out devices, or encouraging them to use their own, to ensure they are operating with the right security measures in place.
Why Should You Consider Using Company-Owned Devices Instead?
Although BYOD is a great system for plenty of businesses, there are benefits to using company-owned devices instead; you have greater control over both security and the loss of data. With very little control over your employees’ personal devices and device security, giving them a work device allows you to set up automatic updates and security patches.
Data loss is crippling for your business and if your company is the one giving the devices, you can ensure there are recovery measures in place. You can talk to a managed service provider for ideas on what would best help protect your business data in the case of a natural disaster, or cyberattack that wipes out your data.
How Can You Safely Implement BYOD Within Your Remote Teams?
Define What BYOD Means for Your Company: You need to decide what devices your team are allowed to use and which ones they need to provide for themselves. Each company will be different, so being more specific is better than not.
Create an Acceptable Use Policy: Although you cannot police home-owned devices, you can create and implement a “technology use policy” for your team members to delineate what updates they need to accept, and how often they should update their security.
Consider How You Can Monitor Their Devices: There are many ways to monitor personal devices without being intrusive, which is something to consider when implementing BYOD within your business.
Decide What Should Happen with the Device Should Somebody Leave the Business: While you cannot take someone’s home-owned device off of them, you need to decide how you’re going to ensure all sensitive data has been safely removed from a remote location.
Many businesses are looking to managed IT services providers for additional help in creating and implementing a remote IT strategy. A professional IT provider can offer more guidelines on how to make a smoother transition to remote work, what updates to consider when purchasing new equipment, and more.
