Home office and remote work have seen growth in the past months that nobody could have foreseen. Nearly all office employees can work just as well at home as in the office. That’s why we’ve set out some easy-to-follow guidelines that show you how to use employee smartphones in a BYOD concept. This allows you to easily enable home office and remote work.
Everyone hopes the coronavirus crisis is only temporary. However, enabling employees to easily work from home is something that every IT department should be looking at. It’s also something that will no doubt pay off in the future.
Remote Work with iPhones and iPads
With Office apps available on iOS devices, users won’t have any trouble working with the tools they already know well from the work office. However for home office and remote work, what needs to be taken into account by IT is that corporate and private data must be kept separate for data protection reasons. Therefore, IT can use a secure container on the device. This ensures that all contacts and work data are kept secure, and separate from the rest of an employee’s data on their smartphone. Finally, you can find more details about data separation on iOS works here.
Long before the home office challenges that Corona caused for companies across the globe, our colleague tried working with an iPad for a full week. You can read how he got on here. Fortunately, Apple implemented one of his hopes for the future – the option to use a mouse with the iPad.
The Situation with Android
Using Android devices, from different providers and running various OS versions can seem to be a challenge. However, using Android Enterprise, these devices can also be easily integrated into your IT environment for a home office. The main features include the separation of business and private data and the encryption of business data. Above all, and as with Apple, a wide range of Office apps are available for your users. With the right hardware, you can even set up a remote session on a device, connect it to a TV or monitor and add a mouse and keyboard. Furthermore, take a look at John Velasco’s article at Phonearena.com for details on these options.
Deploy, Configure & Manage Apps for Employees
You also need to easily deploy any app without prior setting or further management layers. Likewise, with Cortado MDM, you can configure and manage app permissions and configurations centrally for example. You can designate apps as mandatory apps and auto-install them on employee devices. This of course also works the other way around should you want to delete apps. In addition, you can simply add recommended apps to your own enterprise app store which employees can easily access. Basically, the more flexibility you have here, the easier for you and your employees.
Won’t Employees Worry About Privacy?
Employees are often critical when it comes to privacy and data protection. Especially in a home office or remote work scenario. For example, can my boss view or delete my private phone data? However, the BYOD concept takes a simple approach: You separate private data on the phone from business data and apps. This protects both corporate data and the privacy of employees. For an employee working with their own phone in a home office setting, IT simply sets up a business work profile on his device. Only this profile can be viewed and managed by the company. However, the private area on the device remains completely secure. You can find out more about how to deal with the privacy concerns among employees in our BYOD blog here.
Home Office: Where Can I Get Started?
The simplest way to get users back online and at work just as in the office is to use a mobile device management (MDM) system. You can set up Cortado MDM in just a few clicks. It also perfectly adapts to the demands of each device platform. You can find more information, including a free 14-day trial here.