Consumer Devices In Workplace Drive Up IT Anxiety

Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company, has announced the results of its “Consumerisation of IT” Interop survey, which provides insight on the attitudes of Interop Las Vegas 2011 attendees with regard to personal PCs and devices connecting to the corporate network. Survey results indicate that respondents are concerned about personal devices connecting to the corporate network, and have even experienced recent security breaches. Interestingly, many admit to violating their own policies and suspect their own employees and executives of violating policies.

Survey respondents also ranked Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs to be a significant employee benefit, with attendees reporting these programs are as important as benefits such as teleworking, flexible spending accounts, and maternity, paternity and adoption leave. Furthermore, respondents were conflicted about whether allowing employees to use personal devices on the corporate network encourages or decreases employee productivity.

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“These survey results are additional proof that IT is struggling to strike a balance between enabling productivity by allowing an ever-growing list of new devices, and maintaining appropriate levels of compliance and security,” said Ram Appalaraju, Vice President, Marketing, Enterasys Networks. “The younger generation in today’s workforce is accustomed to interacting with IT in a unique way, and contrary to traditional concerns over productivity, these employees often use personal devices and applications as important tools to further the organisation’s goals. IT needs to leverage technology to gain visibility, confidence and control of the market reality of device proliferation at present and in the future.”

IT Concerns, Policies and Protection

Seventy percent of IT respondents are somewhat or absolutely concerned with personal mobile devices (such as iPads, iPhones, and Android devices) connecting to the corporate network. And while 84 percent of respondents indicate their corporate network is protected from devices that are unpatched or poorly managed, 35 percent admit to violating their own corporate policy and 78 percent use personal devices for business-related purposes or use corporate devices to connect to personal applications. Furthermore, one-third of respondents do not have a policy on the use of corporate devices for personal purposes and nearly half (46 percent) do not have a policy around the use of social networking applications.

Respondents also report suspicion that other employees are potential policy violators, estimating that 42 percent of employees and 50 percent of executives use personal devices for business-related purposes or use corporate devices to connect to personal applications. Security breaches are still commonplace, with respondents averaging slightly more than one security breach over the past 12 months.

Employee Perks and Productivity

Survey respondents were conflicted about whether allowing employees to use their own devices improves or decreases productivity. Sixty-three percent of respondents were worried about decreased employee productivity, yet 62 percent noted that improved employee productivity is a somewhat or very influential factor in allowing employees to use their own devices.

Overall, improved employee productivity is the most influential factor in allowing employees to use their own devices (62 percent indicate this is somewhat or very influential); followed by cost savings (51 percent); and employee demand and satisfaction (35 percent).