The Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit 2013 provided an intriguing panel discussion called “The Mobile Workspace – Connect, Share, Collaborate and Collide.” The attendees included Ken Parmelee – mobile and wireless, Karen Hobert – security and risk strategy consultant, Mike Gotta – social software analyst and Daryl Plummer of Gartner. The discussion was lively and informative and focused on the dynamics of mobility in the workspace where consumer and enterprise applications and how employees interact with them collide. The content was driven by customer calls over the last few months with Gartner analysts.
The discussion centered on a use case of a fictitious architectural company employing over 2,000 employees and contractors specializing in all aspects project management. Some of the key discussion points and thought provoking ideas included the following:
Everyone in an organization wants to do everything their own way so how do you get common value for employees and the organization?
- Policies and governance are important and must be in place.
- More savvy organizations are interested in how employees are using mobility in the wild and how to leverage these approaches without introducing risk to an organization.
- Ideally a collaborative middle ground needs to be found. This of course is not an easy thing to do.
- When an organization comes across as “the department of no” it can impede employee productivity.
- Mobility tools can provide great value to employees but it stretches boundaries of work life balance due to always being available.
- Using social media by employees can conflict with internal messaging driven from corporate marketing or communications.
- Some employees may be hesitant to be advocates and brand ambassadors because boundaries may not be clear.
- Other employees may be open and foster their own brands through social media and tools. Corporate policies put into place that restrict these interactions could hurt an employees brand and career.
- Customers expect interaction through social and mobile tools so how do you create policies for interactions customers can comply with or be bound to?
- Can social and mobility tools bring any real cost benefit that can be measured?
- These types of tools mean new metrics may need to be measured in order to determine quantifiable value
- Applications and tools outside an organization can track what an individual does. This could increase risk because enterprise interactions are tracked.
A portion of time was spent on mobile devices and what an organization must consider when embracing them. Some of the considerations are:
- Should you allow a bring your own device policy?
- If you don’t and mandate devices and give devices, you can’t make everyone happy.
- A menu of approved devices could be an option.
- Devices need to balance risk, organizational and employee needs.
- Personal privacy on a personal device is going to be a concern to employees. Monitoring and tracking can be disenfranchising and diminish employee engagement.
The discussion was quite informative and insightful but the key message taken away is that an organization must change and work collaboratively with employees to find middle ground or be left behind.
