Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to the Workplace

The concept of ‘bring your own device’ into the workplace brings about a plethora of mixed feelings and questions. On the one hand you have employers worrying about online security and cost, and on the other you have tech enthusiastic millennials.

Even though there may be some reservations, businesses must prepare for the BYOD generation of staff. According to HP’s senior vice president Enrique Lores ‘…in the next five years we’re going to have employees in the workplace with very different levels of digital consciousness and knowledge.’  He then goes onto say that most businesses are going to end up with employees who have very demanding expectations regarding the IT support they receive and what they expect generally. Most will expect to be able to do the same work whether they are at the office, at home or even when they are commuting and they will expect to be able to access the same data in each place.

e-Learning platforms that are mobile and tablet ready are a fantastic option. They allow staff to easily access any training or documents remotely, from a single sign on point, anywhere and at anytime (as long as you have an internet connection). This therefore provides staff with a gateway to most, if not all the information they would have access to at work. By providing on the move access it caters to the next generation of tech-sawy youths and provides the engagement and freedom that the modern employee expects. According to Lores ‘They don’t communicate on the phone, they don’t communicate by email, but they want to use similar tools for business to the ones they use in their private lives.’ By having an e-learning platform such as Totara that is mobile ready will cater for this need, and as they are open source products will mean the cost is low.

For more information on Totara please visit www.webanywhere.co.uk/workplace