Hand your employees a hotspot
This article was first published by iowabusinessjournals.com
If you employ millennials it is a near certainty they are using their personal smart devices to conduct business. It is likely the case with most generations, but our youngest professionals use every shortcut and tool available to do what needs to be done. As a liability minded entrepreneur chances are this situation concerns you, but without the resources to handout company devices (a practice with an entirely different set of headaches) there are few roadblocks you can erect to halt it. The best practice is to side step it with portable hotspots.
People do stupid things to establish a data signal. Besides hoisting devices into the sky, we rountinely walk into windows, crash our cars, and of course drop and break our devices all in the name of connection. Investing in a handful of wireless hotspots immediately eliminates this foolishness but it is so much than that.
At a few hundred dollars initial investment for the device -plus an ongoing cellular plan- wireless hotspots allow your employees to work anywhere, conduct business without running up data use charges on their own personal plans, and eliminate potential of employees damaging or losing expensive company smart devices.
Now this doesn't address the concern of company business being conducted on personal devices, but that hurdle has been cleared with the standard practice of employees signing over rights for employers to remote wipe personal devices in case of physical loss or data breach. These rights waivers can get quite a bit more draconian, but workers have more or less acquiesced to the spectre of privacy loss in the name of convenience. In truth it is a way for managers to make employees acknowledge the seriousness of using a personal device.
The final reason to pickup a couple wireless hotspots is it is a selling point to employees. While we may be willing to use our personal devices, the data costs that come with it can be greatly irritating. A separate business smartphone cpuld solve that problem, but carrying two phones is almost worse. These business card sized hotspots show our employers recognize our investment and are at least willing to meet us halfway.
Patrick Boberg is a central Iowa creative media specialist. For more tech insights, follow him on Twitter @PatBoBomb
If you employ millennials it is a near certainty they are using their personal smart devices to conduct business. It is likely the case with most generations, but our youngest professionals use every shortcut and tool available to do what needs to be done. As a liability minded entrepreneur chances are this situation concerns you, but without the resources to handout company devices (a practice with an entirely different set of headaches) there are few roadblocks you can erect to halt it. The best practice is to side step it with portable hotspots.
People do stupid things to establish a data signal. Besides hoisting devices into the sky, we rountinely walk into windows, crash our cars, and of course drop and break our devices all in the name of connection. Investing in a handful of wireless hotspots immediately eliminates this foolishness but it is so much than that.
At a few hundred dollars initial investment for the device -plus an ongoing cellular plan- wireless hotspots allow your employees to work anywhere, conduct business without running up data use charges on their own personal plans, and eliminate potential of employees damaging or losing expensive company smart devices.
Now this doesn't address the concern of company business being conducted on personal devices, but that hurdle has been cleared with the standard practice of employees signing over rights for employers to remote wipe personal devices in case of physical loss or data breach. These rights waivers can get quite a bit more draconian, but workers have more or less acquiesced to the spectre of privacy loss in the name of convenience. In truth it is a way for managers to make employees acknowledge the seriousness of using a personal device.
The final reason to pickup a couple wireless hotspots is it is a selling point to employees. While we may be willing to use our personal devices, the data costs that come with it can be greatly irritating. A separate business smartphone cpuld solve that problem, but carrying two phones is almost worse. These business card sized hotspots show our employers recognize our investment and are at least willing to meet us halfway.
Patrick Boberg is a central Iowa creative media specialist. For more tech insights, follow him on Twitter @PatBoBomb
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