How do you effectively manage your technology in a fast-growing business? How do you engage and empower your teams through technology – without enforcing draconian policies? Business owners are expected to lead their teams through technology change and transformation, including managing staff wanting to work with more flexibility around which devices they use to get their work done.
Whether your employees are bringing smartphones into the office, expecting to have work emails configured – or you’re in startup mode and are encouraging new staff to bring their own work machine to your office, it’s time to set some ground rules for BYOD (or ‘Bring Your Own Device’) in your business.
Here are 5 initiatives you can undertake to keep control of sensitive business data while empowering your team to be more productive by providing flexibility in (and out of) the workplace with a ‘Bring your own Device’ policy.
#1 Set a Technology Policy
What gets measured gets managed. It’s important to set appropriate guidelines for technology use in your business, including covering the use of employee-owned technology. This may include what websites are appropriate to browse during work time, as well as what software should be installed as ‘standard’ on a work-ready machine. This should include Antivirus, any Office or other applications that your team will need for their daily work schedule.
#2 Control Access to Data
Modern cloud business applications such as G Suite will allow you to enforce policies on any device logged into a corporate account under your domain. This means that staff using Chrome on a device they own (be it mobile, PC or Mac), they’ll be under your management.
For instance, staff logged into Google Chrome with their Google Apps email address can have a set of applications, plugins or extensions you define automatically ‘installed’ in their Chrome browser. You can even control what bookmarks your staff starts with and whether or not to enforce Google’s ‘safe browsing’ which blocks access to malicious websites automatically.
#3 Enable Two-Factor Authentication
Enabling two-factor authentication as a policy across your domain will help protect access to staff logins should they use a shared machine to access work data. This will also ensure that accounts are protected in the event of an unauthorized attempted login to the account.
#4 Enforce Passcodes on Mobile Devices
A mobile device without a passcode is as useless as setting your email password to ‘password123’. G Suite will also allow you to enforce policies on mobile devices connected to enterprise accounts such as requiring passcodes on devices – keeping access to company data safe in the event that an employee device is lost.
#5 Give your team a choice
Consider giving more choices to your team with things that you control, and you may be surprised to find a happy medium of flexibility. For instance, instead of adopting a policy of forcing staff to use a certain make of computer (choosing between only Mac or PC) or require them to supply their own – perhaps provide both options for them to choose between working with whichever platform suits them best, and then supply it.
An efficient ‘Bring Your Own Device’ technology policy will keep your team productive with work tools that suit their working style while keeping business data protected and secured. Effective technology management requires flexibility from teams as well as business owners leading change in their organizations. Did these tips help you? Drop a comment below!
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