New iPass Mobile Workforce Survey Finds Hours on the Job Drive Habits of Mobile Employees

Quarterly survey shows mobile workers view social media as a drain to workplace productivity while email and the telephone provide a gain to productivity

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., — May 20, 2010 — iPass® Inc. (NASDAQ: IPAS), a leading provider of enterprise mobility services, today published its quarterly Mobile Workforce Report. The report includes a survey of more than 1,400 mobile employees which reveals that mobile employees believe they are more productive, work longer hours, telecommute frequently and see mobile technology as having a positive effect on both their business and personal lives. Based on the findings of the survey, iPass segmented mobile employees into five categories: mobile maniacs, mobile masters, the mobile majority, the mobile minority and mobile minimalists.

The survey found that 88 percent of mobile employees check their smartphone during downtime; 27 percent occasionally check it, 55 percent usually check it, and 6 percent confess to obsessively checking it. Based on this data iPass identified two segments of this population with extreme behavior:

• Mobile Maniacs (6 percent of respondents) suffer from a mobile device addiction, they work the longest hours, check their smartphone obsessively and need to stay connected all the time. Fifty four percent of mobile maniacs work more than 60 hours a week, and 23 percent of mobile maniacs see a negative impact on their work/life balance due to mobile technology.
• Mobile Minimalists (12 percent of respondents) are mostly desk bound and believe strongly in “having a life.” They admit to not checking their smartphone during downtime, and 37 percent work 40 hours a week or fewer. However, 40 percent see a positive impact on their work/life balance due to mobile technology.

The additional three categories were based on length of work week:

• Mobile Masters (34 percent of respondents) are a company’s road warriors. They work 55 hours or more a week. They work from home more frequently than the other segments (62 percent telecommute at least one day a week). Eighty percent believe mobile technology makes them much more productive, but 13 percent see a negative impact on work/life balance.
• Mobile Majority (47 percent of respondents) represent the mobile population at large. They work 45 to 55 hours a week, in line with modern workday averages. They sit in the middle on telecommuting with 50 percent reporting that they work from home at least one day a week, while 10 percent don’t work from home at all. Sixty-seven percent believe that mobile technology makes them much more productive at work and 34 percent see greater work/life balance due to mobile technology.
• Mobile Minority (18 percent of respondents) like the mobile minimalists, work 40 or fewer hours a week, are most likely to go into the office every day, and less likely to telecommute. In fact, 19 percent do not telecommute at all. For this group, while mobile technology does provide productivity gains, it also enables personal freedom. Almost half see mobile technology as enabling more work/life balance, although 23 percent admit to not checking their smartphone during downtime.

“A one-size-fits-all approach to serving the needs of mobile users is no longer sufficient – each mobile worker has unique needs based on hours they work in and out of the office, and how they use mobile technology,” said Evan Kaplan, president and CEO of iPass. “To be most effective enterprise IT teams should look to adopt a user segment based approach to defining and enforcing mobility policies.”

Most and Least Valued Tools of Mobile Workforce

According to the survey, 93 percent of overall respondents believed mobile technology made them more productive. Only five percent saw no influence from mobile technology on their productivity, and just one percent felt less productive because of mobile technology. Tools that contributed positively to their productivity included email (85 percent), telephone (75 percent), text messaging (67 percent) and instant messaging (66 percent). Mobile employees were fairly evenly split on the value of meetings (53 percent seeing it as a gain) and travel (48 percent seeing it as a gain) to their productivity. And despite its recent rise in popularity, 78 percent of mobile employees saw social media as a drain on their work productivity.

About the Report

The iPass Mobile Workforce Report is a quarterly report that summarizes both survey data, as well as enterprise mobile broadband usage data collected by iPass across its user base of 3,500 enterprises. The report includes responses to a survey from more than 1,400 mobile enterprise employees conducted April 26 through May 14, 2010. The mobile usage data was collected from January 1 through March 31, 2010. A complete copy of the report is available at www.ipass.com/about/mobile-workforce-report/.

About iPass Inc.

Founded in 1996, iPass (NASDAQ:IPAS) is a leading provider of enterprise mobility services with 3,500 customers, including more than 370 of the Forbes Global 2000. The company’s mission is to be the voice of the enterprise in the market for mobility services by providing solutions that simply, smartly and openly facilitate access from any device on any network, while providing the visibility and control necessary to contain spiraling mobility costs, maximize mobile user productivity and maintain security in a world where consumers drive enterprise IT. For more information, visit www.iPass.com or follow iPass on Twitter at www.twitter.com/iPass.

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iPass® is a registered trademark of iPass Inc. Other company names and product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.