BYOD is Coming: How to Prepare & Train Your Team

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) culture is swiftly taking over businesses big and small. Business owners are realizing the benefits of BYOD and seeing how it can improve their everyday processes.

Though the idea only emerged in 2009, ZDNet says that  74% of organizations currently use or are planning to use BYOD in the future. They are allowing workers to bring in their cell phones, personal laptops, tablets, and wearables and do all their work on them. However, only about 30 percent of businesses have any formal type of BYOD management set up.

If you’re considering adopting BYOD in your office, you must first thoroughly train your employees. Otherwise, you could end up misplacing secure information or having it stolen, putting your business at risk of losing money, time, and resources, cultivating confusion regarding workflow, blocking productivity.

Need some advice for your own organization? The following are a few ways to prepare your employees for BYOD.

Tell employees far in advance

A BYOD transition doesn’t happen overnight. If you have many employees, you must give them time to plan for your new policy. Plus, your managers and IT team members have to look into new software and hardware to purchase to figure out what will work best with BYOD. Give several months’ notice and highlight how BYOD will improve the workplace. If employees are already answering emails and storing company documents on their personal devices, you’ll have to guide them on how to transition over to a more official system.

Create a BYOD Handbook

Employees need something to reference back to if they have questions or concerns about your BYOD policy and best practices. Before launching, distribute a handbook that will outline any possible situations that may arise. For instance, the handbook should cover:

• What devices are acceptable for your BYOD policy. You may not want your employees checking work emails on their personal phones, but instead provide them with separate work phones for example.
• Security requirements for all devices. This would include password protection, and making sure that the same password is not used more than once. The passwords should also be complicated and not easy to guess. Employees need to install firewalls and anti-virus software, and never log onto public WIFI since it’s where a lot of sensitive information is easily stolen.
• Software requirements for all devices. Highlight what software you’ll expect them to install in order for their devices to work properly with your enterprise content management system.
• What happens to data when an employee quits, is fired, or laid off. How will your company clear his or her device to make sure it doesn’t contain your work information? How will you make sure that you’re not wiping his or her personal information?
• What’s expected of employees if and when they use their devices. BYOD isn’t a free-for-all to use unprofessional language. Perhaps you don’t want employees answering work emails or opening company documents after work hours.

Show them how your new software & ECM functions work

Employees are comfortable using your current software. They also might not know how your ECM system will function on their own devices. When implementing BYOD, you may have to train them on how to best utilize the new software you’re installing. Offer meetings and training sessions to ensure that they are correctly using and getting the most out of it.

Getting the ball rolling

BYOD can eventually save your company in valuable resources. However, at the start, it requires an investment of time and money to make sure that you’re prepared to launch your new policy. By training your employees, you’re taking that first step towards successfully embarking on your exciting BYOD program!

 

Do you need help transforming your organization’s enterprise content management? Contact Contentverse today for a consultation!