With companies looking for ways to cultivate the next wave of talent, the use of personal devices will be a distinguishing feature of corporate culture. The ban on using personal devices for work is being increasingly compromised as more employees demand the convenience. Whether it’s using a laptop, smartphone, tablet, or accessing a cloud storage service, employees want to stay plugged in and connected on all of the networks of today’s modern life.
Always Connected to Work and Personal
This change is really being led by workers ages 21 to 31 who are looking to their companies to support these connected environments, in spite of the security risks associated with blurring the lines of technology. And more than half of this group will break the rules to stay connected. A recent 20-country study by network security firm Fortinet found that more than 51% of those polled would circumvent bans on personal devices, even though the group was largely aware of the risks.
In TIBCO’s “Predictions 2014” whitepaper, we see that CIOs are no longer fighting this phenomenon, but embracing the change—38% of CIOs will target full functionality with their systems by 2016. It will be interesting to see how companies create a happy compromise between the strict standards needed to keep information secure with employees’ personal and professional needs to be connected.
With being connected 24-7 becoming the standard for work and play, who knows where the debate over work-life balance will lead.
