"This trend is most notable amongst millennials or generations Y and Z; people born after the early 1980's," says Kay Vittee, CEO of Quest Staffing Solutions. "Along with this generation's widely known characteristics of increased use and familiarity with technology and their focus on work-life balance, employers will need to develop BYOD plans and policies to attract these young men and women into their workplace."
The same survey also identified the main challenges BYOD faces, revealing that concerns around security and corporate policy are the greatest.
BYOD offers undeniable benefits as an enhanced attraction and retention tool for HR as well as offering increased productivity, greater mobility and better job satisfaction, but it presents some challenges too.
"Although the challenges are more obvious for IT due to the security and support issues of multiple personal devices, there are also serious challenges for HR," says Vittee. "These challenges include the protection and management of company information stored on the personal device especially regarding syncing or pairing the personal device to other devices and the retrieval and deletion of data on personal devices in the case of employment termination."
Joint HR and IT policies governing internet and email usage and data protection are common, but BYOD policies are new to most organisations.
Advice on how to approach the development of a BYOD policy for an organisation can include the following:
Technology is always evolving and improving, so any BYOD policy has to be as dynamic.
"BYOD is set to become more and more important in the attraction and retention of employees," concludes Vittee. "With generation Y soon to make up the majority of our workforce, accommodating their preferred way of work is vital in ensuring maximum productivity and performance."