Survey: Gen Y Workers Want Mobile Devices; Prep Your BYOD Policies

So-called "Gen Y" workers are entering the workforce in droves. As young men and women graduate college and enter the workplace, they bring with them a unique base of life experience. Most of them have grown up with laptops and mobile devices and are fully accustomed to being connected to information--and one another--at all times. And now that Gen Y is hitting the workforce, its members are standing up for what they view as their right to choose what device they use to do their work.

"These are the people to whom personal technology is ubiquitous within their lives, and as they enter the workforce that is going to have a direct impact on how IT people deal with this need and requirement for people to have access to information whenever and wherever they need it," says Kevin Flynn, senior product manager at Fortinet, a company that provides network security appliances.

These young workers are the chief driving force behind the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) revolution that has IT professionals scurrying to accommodate without leaving IT assets unprotected. IT is trying to answer some serious questions right now: Where is the most comfortable midpoint in BYOD policies that will please both the CIO and the young worker? Is it possible to reach that point?

As tricky as it might seem, it's a situation the industry has lived through before, says Flynn. It's no different than the switch from mainframes and dumb terminals to desktop PCs in the 1980s, or the rise of the Internet in the early to mid-1990s. IT staff members dealt with it then on the network infrastructure and security levels to improve the way people did their work. They need to be as accommodating and creative now.

"Denying it or stalling it is not good business," warns Flynn.

Not only is there a risk of keeping current workers hamstrung without the mobile devices they've come to depend upon, but organizations will also find they risk losing out on recruiting and retaining talent.

"To hire and retain younger talent that brings innovation into the enterprise, organizations need to be able to accommodate the technology expectations of that workforce in order to maintain a competitive advantage," says Melissa Siems, senior director of solutions marketing for mobile security at McAfee.

It isn't a matter of just caving into the demands of spoiled youngsters, says Siems, but enabling Gen Y employees to work with the best technology out there.

"For a long time, home computing was far inferior to what was available at work," says Mushegh Hakhinian, a CISSP and security architect at IntraLinks. "At some point, consumer devices--phones, laptops and tablets--surpassed the bare-bones business systems approved by IT. The new entrants into the workplace simply cannot comprehend why they would need to use inferior and unfriendly devices when consumer devices can provide superior productivity."

Next: Survey Finds Gen Y Employees Won't Be Denied Mobile DevicesTry to deny them, and you may find that you not only put Gen Y workers at odds with the organization, but you also spur many of them on to renegade activity.

"Tech-savvy workers will find a way around the ban and still use personal devices for corporate email, document creation and sharing, presentations, etc.," says Siems.

A recent global survey by Fortinet lends credence to Siems' warnings. The survey found that, no matter how firmly stated the company's security policy, one in three Gen Y workers would do what they could to work around company policy in the interest of using mobile devices to help do their jobs. Many young workers were raised to consider access to information a right, not just a privilege.

The trick, then, is to come up with common-sense BYOD policies that will allow young workers to use their devices without jeopardizing corporate network security. A basic solution might look as simple as a VPN and two-factor authentication. Moving up the spectrum is setting up a virtual desktop, says Flynn.

"[That way] I am seeing the corporate information in a virtual manner," he said. "It only exists back at the corporation. It never gets on my machine."

Security might be the main concern in the BYOD workplace, but it isn't the only concern. The Fortinet survey cites a very immediate threat: time wasting. There's nothing new about employees spending loads of unproductive time on their computers. But the degree to which social media has become borderline addictive, especially among Gen Y workers, makes the threat that much more significant. According to the survey, 35% of Gen Y respondents claimed that they would have a hard time making it through the day without social networks; 47% said they'd feel very uncomfortable going a day without SMS text messaging. That signifies a high potential for a loss of productivity and, consequently, money.

Technology that limits these abuses is readily available, says Flynn.

"You can place controls in a network-centered approach, allowing you to place controls over what information goes back and forth. You can literally set it so that you can go on Facebook for an hour a day and these other people, they can go on Facebook whenever they want," he says.

Gen Y workers and the BYOD culture pose several significant challenges. The technology exists to help limit abuses, as long as the company's IT department has the resources and time to set it up and properly configure controls. The human element is always a huge challenge, says Flynn.

According to the Fortinet study, 66% of young workers feel that they, not their employer, are responsible for the security of their mobile devices. And while young workers are the main champions of independence, they are not alone.

Older, more experienced employees can give significant pushback, as well. Citing a CIO at a major medical facility, Flynn says, "I'm not going to tell a Nobel-prize winning scientist what he can do on the Internet."