Work-Life Balance with BYOD

BYOD (bring your own device) offers a number of benefits. Employees choose the device they use, employers save on device costs, remote working is simplified, the list goes on. It’s not without its concerns, however.

In addition to security risks, one of the primary red flags with BYOD is the blurring of work life and personal life. With the rise of smartphones, powerful portable computers, mobile networks, and cloud-based systems, the work-life balance has become increasingly murky. Left unchecked, BYOD can disrupt this balance even further.

While work-life balance is sometimes labeled as an employee concern, it should be just as important to employers. It’s not just about whether their work life bleeds into their personal time, but how much of their personal life infiltrates into work time.

True to its name, it’s a balance of both sides. Maintaining work-life balance results in employees with better attitudes who are more efficient. With the current COVID-19 quarantine measures that are in place, keeping work life and personal life separated is more difficult (and more important) than ever.

Here is some general guidance for maintaining work-life balance with BYOD, whether your employees are quarantined at home or not.

Separating Work and Life with BYOD

When it comes to managing devices owned by your employees, much of it is about setting expectations.

You shouldn’t expect your employees to always have their work email pulled up, their communication app turned on, etc. In fact, unless their role requires emergency responses or it’s a special situation, it might be good to encourage employees to mute work-notifications during off hours.

On the other hand, you should set hours when they should be online and reachable from their device. Make sure they know when their hours of availability should be. Set a policy for placing meetings/availability on a shared calendar.

If you’re using Slack, Teams, or a similar communication tool, ask that employees keep their statuses updated.

Speaking of tools and apps, make sure they have the necessary programs installed on their device so that they can adequately perform their tasks and responsibilities. Additionally, make sure that antivirus and firewall software is in place and activated.

This will help protect both them and you from whatever they use their device to do. It’s hard to tell them what they can’t do with their own device, but you can mandate what they need to do if they’re going to use it for work.

Preventing Personal Actions from Invading the Workplace

If your employees are using personal devices for work, those devices are naturally more exposed to risks. To protect your company’s information and network from things the device might be accessing, proper security measures need to be implemented.

For more hands-on monitoring and control, there are additional tools you can implement, such as a MAM (mobile application management), This allows you to monitor, update, and even remove mobile applications from a remote device, protecting your employees from otherwise dangerous software.

Other tools can allow you to monitor, access, and update laptops and desktops as well. Whatever you do, it’s always important to be transparent with your employees. Make sure they know what you can see and access on their device.

It’s a Process

Successfully integrating BYOD requires guidelines, policies, and expectations. Maintaining the balance between work and life as your employees use their own devices is a process. It’s important that you engage with your employees, get their feedback, and adjust accordingly.

Of course, creating policies, implementing changes, and assisting employees with any technical difficulties is a lot of work. This is where a dedicated IT team can help.

At DataYard, we provide a range of IT services to assist modern day businesses. Whether you need cybersecurity, cloud storage, managed IT, or all of the above, we’re here to serve. For BYOD, our IT consultants in Dayton, Ohio can help create and implement policies and that maintain work-life balance and keep your systems protected.

Contact us today!

Keep Work and Personal Use Separate

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CYBERSECURITY SERVICES

Importance of IT in Quarantine Remote Work

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus and the implementation of quarantine and social distancing measures, most office workers are finding themselves operating from home. While many modern offices have some degree of work from home policies in place, the idea of everyone working from home day after day is a much different situation.

Everyone is having to rapidly adjust.

Working from home every day sounds great in theory, but it also poses a number of problems. For workers, many struggle with productivity and focus at home, especially with schools being closed and children being home.

For business owners and office managers, there are more unique concerns. It’s very important to maintain proper IT practices and security measures while everyone is working from home. Though we don’t know how long this time of quarantine will last, it’s best to prepare for the long-haul.

Here are a few things to be mindful of...

Employees Being Ill-Equipped

Most office workers have a laptop, tablet, or at-home computer to utilize. If you have a bring your own device policy in place, they may even use it for work already. Even if they do, the rest of their at–home setup likely pales in comparison to their work setup. If your employees have multiple monitors, standing desks, comfortable chairs, and/or new computers at the office, sitting at a dinner table with a laptop is going to be a challenge for them.

If possible, let employees take monitors, work computers, and even desk chairs home during this time. Give tips for creating their setup. You can even have employees share their own setups.

Security Connections

Home networks are often much less secure than business networks. While you can’t overhaul the broadband and Wi-Fi systems that your employees have at home, you can implement protocols on the devices they’re connecting to it.

This includes making sure their device’s network settings are configured correctly, that firewalls and anti-virus software are turned on, etc. A further measure would be to implement a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This encrypts the data coming and going from a device, making it undecipherable to anyone who isn’t authorized to view it.

This is a highly effective measure that can be implemented with simple, affordable software.

If further security measures are needed, you could issue hardware firewalls to employees to be used at home. It’s an added expense, not to mention some additional configuration would be needed, but for employees who are handling especially valuable data, it may be necessary.

Implementing Communication Tools and Software

With everyone working from home, there’s a greater need for implementing communication and sharing tools. While you certainly had a number of software programs and online tools you used in office, some applications might be needed. Thankfully, there are more ways than ever to connect, share, and work collaboratively without being in the same building.

The main hurdle here is getting your employees setup and trained on the tools.

A Dedicated IT Team Makes Remote Work Much Smoother

With so much already going on, trying to micromanage the individual IT needs of each remote employee can be impossible. However, it’s very important that these needs are met and that they’re handled appropriately.

This is an especially terrible time to lose productivity, experience miscommunication, or suffer from a security breach.

Having a dedicated IT team on hand can make a massive difference. A quality IT company is well-versed in operating remotely, and they’ll be able to assist in setting employees up with new hardware and software and making sure your systems are secure.

At DataYard, we provide a wide range of IT services perfectly suited to help businesses adapt to the rapidly changing work atmosphere. Our IT consultants in Dayton, Ohio can help you maximize security, connectivity, and productivity while your employees operate remotely. We have the knowledge and experience to spot shortcomings, create IT strategies, and implement changes so that everyone is on the same page, regardless of where they’re working from.

Our IT Pros are Here for You

MAKE REMOTE WORKING BETTER

Setting Expectations for Your IT Support

In today’s digital, data driven world, your IT department has never been more important. Digital security should be one of the top priorities of any modern business. After all, a data breach costs a company an average of $8.19 million.

Of course, an IT team handles much more than security. From setting up employees with company devices to upgrading software and hardware systems to simply keeping your systems running, your IT department is the heart of all things digital.

Because of this, you should carry very high expectations for your IT team, whether they’re in house or outsourced (or a combination). Third party IT companies can be a valuable asset, as they can typically provide more in-depth services at a much more affordable price.

But the wrong IT company can become a serious liability.

Here is What You Should Expect from a Third-Party IT Company

First and foremost, they need to actually offer the services you require. IT can cover a lot of area, and every company has different needs. Certain IT companies can be more niche than others. Check and see if they have familiarity with your systems as well, from server types to software that’s being used.

There is expected to be a certain amount of discovery when it comes to onboarding a new IT company, but they should have an idea of what they’re getting into.

The same goes for knowledge of your industries compliance needs and security standards. This is especially important for businesses that deal with NIST 800-171 and HIPAA compliance.

A lot of IT is also about thinking and planning ahead. That’s why it’s not enough for an IT provider to meet you where you’re at currently. Scalability is important to consider. As your business matures and grows, your IT needs grow with it.

Your IT provider needs to be able to step up their service as required.

Lastly, when IT emergencies arise, fast response time is critical. You need to make sure a company is easily reachable, effective at communicating what’s going on, and quick to act. While it can be difficult to know how quickly an IT company is going to respond until you’re actually working with them, you can watch for signs during your initial engagement with them.

If details are being skipped over or replies are coming a day or two later, you may want to look elsewhere.

At DataYard, We Aim to Exceed Expectations

We believe that quality IT Support cannot exist without high-level customer service. We want you to know that you have our attention. We’re here to assist you, answer questions, explain uncertainties, and do everything we can to put you at ease.

From the moment a client signs up, it’s our goal to not just maintain the status quo, but to improve your system so that you’re protected against the future. After all, IT isn’t just about protecting against current threats and potential problems. It’s about staying ahead of them.

We can cater our services to your needs. Whether you need a full external IT staff or another team to support your inhouse staff, we’ll integrate seamlessly with your company. And for those located near our data center in the Dayton, Ohio area, we make onsite visits as needed.

With DataYard at your side, you can expect a level of IT support that exceeds your needs.

We're Here for You

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR IT SERVICES

DataYard Network Maintenance 9/12

DataYard will be performing maintenance on our core internet infrastructure Thursday morning (9/12) at 12:00 AM to move connectivity back to our primary router now that we are fully recovered after last month’s outage. This will impact ethernet express, ethernet express metro, and regional ethernet services. Downtime is expected to be less than 15 minutes.

Let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or just want to chat: 1.800.982.4539 or [email protected]. Remember to follow us on Twitter (@datayardtechops & @datayard)!

DataYard Network Maintenance 8/8

DataYard will be moving up a part Saturday’s maintenance on our core internet infrastructure to tonight (8/8) at 10:00 PM for customer on a few services. Tonight’s change will impact ethernet express metro and regional ethernet services delivered via Centurylink. Downtime is expected to be less than 15 minutes. This is being done to prevent any business hours interruptions to service due to hardware that is in a degraded state.

Let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or just want to chat: 1.800.982.4539 or [email protected]. Remember to follow us on Twitter (@datayardtechops & @datayard)!

DataYard Network Maintenance 8/10

DataYard will be performing maintenance on our core internet infrastructure Saturday morning (8/10) at 12:01 AM to replace suspect hardware. This will impact ethernet express, ethernet express metro, and regional ethernet services. Downtime is expected to be less than 15 minutes.

Let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or just want to chat: 1.800.982.4539 or [email protected]. Remember to follow us on Twitter (@datayardtechops & @datayard)!

DataYard Network Maintenance 7/18

Due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts, DataYard will be performing patching on its core internet infrastructure in order to address some performance and security concerns. This will take place tomorrow morning (7/18) at 12:01 AM and any downtime should be kept under 15 minutes. This maintenance will affect customer on our Ethernet Express, Ethernet Express Metro, and Regional Ethernet products. Make IT Better!

Let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or just want to chat: 1.800.982.4539 or [email protected]. Remember to follow us on Twitter (@datayardtechops & @datayard)!

Data Center Network Maintenance 12/1

DataYard will be performing maintenance on our data center network on December 1st from 7:00AM EST to 1:00PM EST. You may notice brief downtime to your service during this window. We will work to minimize any downtime.

Affected services include VIP, VDC, hosted firewall, and Colocation.

Let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or just want to chat: 1.800.982.4539 or [email protected]. Remember to follow us on Twitter (@datayardtechops & @datayard)!