By Jonathan Erwin
The bring-your-own revolution is in full swing. From BYOB restaurants to bring-your-own-bag at grocery stores, bring-your-own-beamer (projector) art shows, and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) businesses, there is a paradigm shift in how companies create happiness and value for both employees and customers.
Executives who understand and leverage this trend can transform their entire organization. With BYOD policies in particular, executives can boost morale and productivity, streamline communications, and cut IT costs. The BYOD revolution goes even deeper than merely helping businesses; it also represents some exciting implications for associations and nonprofits. Here’s how.
- Use BYOD policies to boost morale and productivity.
BYOD policies allow staff to bring their own laptops, smartphones, and tablets into a work environment for job-related tasks. This freedom is a powerful morale booster the workforce. Device freedom gives employees choice, value, and social connectivity. To the extent that personal style is highly variable and specific to each individual, smart devices are now personalized to the style, taste, and needs of individuals.
Mobile device users now curate a collection of apps to sync files and calendars, scan business cards and documents, or take notes and voice recordings on the move. These processes boost efficiency, organization, and overall effectiveness. Today, meeting planners, association executives, and outsourced consultants might feel lost without their mobile toolset, and no two toolsets are exactly alike. Thus, associations empower employees with device freedom. Using their own devices, staff can feel more connected to people both inside and outside the organization, and they do not feel patronized or limited by the digital policies of their organizations.
Psychologically, people enjoy using their own device for the same reason restaurant patrons enjoy bringing their own bottle of wine to a fine restaurant: they already own it; it was their choice; and they believe they picked the best value option.
- Create community and dialogue in non-desk environments.
If you work in front of a computer, you might question why employees need to feel more digitally connected to their business. Here’s the reality: More than 60 percent of the American workforce is in hourly, non-desk jobs. The overwhelming majority never receive a corporate email address or any way to connect digitally with their organization. Healthcare professionals, waiters, chefs, retail associates, industrial workers, and association and nonprofit volunteers cannot access computers often. Because they cannot send or receive communications easily, or doing so is a violation of corporate policy, they feel disconnected and alienated at times. Corporations also lose productivity without an efficient system for communicating operational changes, emergencies and other key messaging.
For organizations of all sizes, mobile devices are an obvious and accessible channel for internal communications.
In 2013, the Pew Research Center found that 91% of Americans have cell phones and 56% have smartphones. The infrastructure for connectivity and dialogue is already in place and growing. For employees with mobile phones yet no corporate email, the chance to connect with their organization via mobile devices is appreciated.
Associations also benefit from improved communication channels. Associations often have hundreds or thousands of members, which creates a challenge for association leaders: How do you keep track of your ever-evolving and disparate membership? By connecting to your members’ mobile devices, everyone is kept in the loop, and the membership can achieve a level of connectedness that was unheard of until now
- Save Your IT budget.
According to Computer World, global mobile device spending in IT departments was projected to top $431 billion in 2013. This is a lot to spend on devices that most employees already own. A company smartphone or tablet may be an employee’s second or third device, and it may be a lower quality, less customizable device.
Security typically drives organizations to purchase devices for their staff. Some IT departments believe that standard communications are easily hacked, and mobile devices will be used to leak sensitive corporate communications.
A wide array of mobile solutions, however, now address mobile security concerns. Apps now let management deliver and receive encrypted communications, automate messaging, delegate communication privileges and track read rates, among other capabilities. IT does not have to spend a fortune safeguarding communications.
The key is to recognize that BYOD belongs to a category of workplace policies that appeal especially to millennials and rising generations who live a highly mobile and digital life. If BYOD policies can transform an organization, surely there are more opportunities to create choice, value, and connectivity in a business environment. Bring your own perspective to this question, and look at BYO values as a compass for deeper organizational transformation.
Associations also benefit from the reduction in costs. When an app on your memberships’ mobile devices is capable of streamlining communication, suddenly an association's headquarters has much less overhead to maintain. This technology helps associations save your money for more important campaigns and projects than mere logistical or organizational necessities, which are now covered through mobile technology.
Ultimately, using mobile technology, associations and nonprofits can make members and donors aware of their activities in an engaging manner, enabling them to better succeed at their missions.
Jonathan Erwin is founder and CEO of Red e App, whose mission is to help organizations more effectively engage their members or customers through mobile communications. He can be reached through his website at www.redeapp.com.