tyntec, a telecom-web convergence company, reveals that whilst 43% of UK employees use their personal mobile for work, eight in ten would prefer to keep their private and corporate communications separate.
BYOD: The Personal and Corporate Divide
Three in ten UK employees solely use their personal mobile for work related tasks. In comparison, almost half (49%) of US and Spanish respondents use just their personal phone for work. Further, 13% of UK respondents use both their personal and corporate phone for work; and almost 90% use their mobile phones for work outside of normal business hours.
Despite using their personal phone for work reasons, most UK employees (81%) would prefer to have either two separate phones or one phone with two numbers so that they can switch between their personal and corporate communications. This preference was shared across the board with 74% of US and 91% of Spanish employees also choosing to have separate phone numbers for work and personal use.
One way to separate personal and corporate communications is to power corporate phone apps with virtual phone numbers. Using this technology, enterprises are able to provide the convenience and privacy employees want while also meeting the business requirements for productivity and governance.
Separation For the Sake of Billing and Privacy
Potential drivers for separation preferences can be found by expressed concerns over reimbursement and privacy. Respondents were moderately to extremely concerned about having to pay for business usage on their phone bills in the UK (54%), US (62%) and Spain (69%). Additionally, employees using their personal device for work expressed concern about their employer’s ability to access their private messages. Over 60% of US employees expressed privacy concerns followed by, 58% in Spain and 48% in the UK.
Despite the amount of work-related functions carried out on personal phones, only a small subset of employees claimed the company they work for has a formal BYOD policy in place – with US showing the highest percentage at 34%, compared to 18% in the UK and 25% in Spain.
“BYOD is the new norm, and the sooner enterprises embrace sound BYOD policies and user friendly features, the sooner they can increase productivity and eliminate concerns from IT and its employees,” said Thorsten Trapp, Co-founder and CTO of tyntec. “The use of virtual numbers accomplishes both sides of the BYOD puzzle. IT departments can ensure mobile governance over all communication devices and employees are granted separation. All that is required is for employees to install their corporate app enabled with virtual phone number, and simply switch to the app for work related communications.”
tyntec provides the technology and infrastructure needed to power enterprise communication applications with voice- and SMS-enabled virtual numbers, providing the separation that employees want while bringing their devices under the IT control and management.
The survey report and infographic can be downloaded here.
