Mobile Workforce Survey Results:

Recommendations for IT:

Consider a volume discount on employee access to hotspots at nearby coffee shops and restaurants, or other places they are roaming. Your employees will appreciate the effort, and perhaps will get in a bit of work while saving you money.

If they are going to work remotely, make it safe for them. Workers who are connected while working might be driving a car, an unsafe practice without the proper equipment. Buy them a hands-free smartphone kit, and issue a safety manual on proper practices while commuting.

Safety should also work its way into usage policies. Create a usage policy (that all employees must sign) that allows them to use a mobile device for work purposes, and covers data security and physical security.

Planes, commuter trains, and waiting rooms/terminals are the most likely place for mobile device and data theft. Remind employees of this possibility, and provide them with laptop-tethers and other security devices.

Workshifting makings employees more productive, efficient, and relaxed with a better work/life balance. Organizations should use this as guidance for setting up a productive work environment in the office. Cubicles and even individual offices often have too much distraction to enable peak efficiency. Consider adding “plugged-in lounges”—a quiet, dimmed-light room with several small work desks and comfortable chairs, where employees can go to write an important report or complete their overdue expense reports without the distraction of the phone or the practical jokes of people gathered around the water cooler. Thousands of colleges can’t be wrong—nearly every such institution finds these lounges full of students studying and writing away from the noise of their everyday routines.

It is important to share these statistics with both the HR department and upper management. Certainly many are already aware (at least on a generalized basis) of these important findings, but they will come as a wake-up call to others. An IT "mobility advisor" can help them understand the cost saving and productivity gains associated with a mobility strategy that addresses workshifting. You can play a big part in crafting policies and changes that make everyone more productive and happier in their work.

Our findings were the result of polling over 1,100 companies. Because your institution is likely to have many points of uniqueness, you should consider polling your own employees with a similar questionnaire on an annual basis, to craft mobility strategies that have the most impact.

Many enterprises fear that if you give employees too much flexibility, it will be abused. The data shows that employees will take advantage of flexibility are more productive, but the organization has the right to set guidelines around the best usage of personally liable and IT liable devices when used for work-related purposes. Enterprises also have the right to monitor and track usage against those guidelines. This may help some within the organization to be more comfortable with pushing access outward.

Even if you are paying the connectivity bills for your mobile workers, send monthly mobility reports to each employee and their manager so they will be aware of their usage.

Make information on the costs of different connectivity options readily available to all employees. Many do not know the most cost-effective way to connect and are incurring huge, unnecessary roaming charges for the enterprise.

Define what roaming is in the usage policies. Make it very clear to employees under what situations they will incur roaming charges (including going across international borders). You should also provide roaming reference tips. For example, employees may know to not make a phone call in a roaming zone, but may forget to turn off data roaming while traveling so just checking their email becomes expensive.

Large companies can have some sway in how their billing is handled. Discussing very specific companywide plans directly with the senior management of mobile carriers can eliminate these large-bill anomalies.

To make workshifting employees productive outside the office, consider a Wi-Fi roaming solution to ensure employees are connected virtually everywhere they go.

Consider adding tablets to your list of approved devices. Although the devices first gained popularity in the personal use market, they are now important productivity tools for business use as well.

Make sure you pre-load the tablets with all necessary data security and productivity apps before issuance. The IT department can conduct these downloads much more efficiently than most employees.