August 11, 2015
It’s a given today that when employees go on holiday, many pack their work tablets and smartphones alongside their swimming costumes and flip-flops. This post gives you handy tips for maintaining information security while working from your sun lounger.
With the rise of BYOD (bring your own device) policies, holiday time is still connected time: according to a study by the Institute of Leadership and Management, 61% of British employees now work while on holiday, an increase of 7% in just two years. The poll of 1,000 UK workers and managers showed that 64% regularly read and send emails during their time off, while 28% take business phone calls. A further 8% even went into their offices while officially on leave.
Another study by holiday company sunshine.co.uk, showed that the biggest cause of holiday anxiety was the fear of falling behind with work, with 67% of respondents saying they continued to work to stay on top of their workloads.
Of course, technology has everything to do with the mobile workforce and the blurred line between professional and private lives. The wireless internet, smartphones, laptops, and tablets have made it easy to work from home – and the beach.
Research has shown that UK citizens carry an average of 2.7 devices such as tablets, laptops and smartphones. The rise in popularity of BYOD means many users no longer have to carry two smartphones (a work-issued device and personal device).
So while employees remain productive outside of the office 24/7, the downside is that they can access corporate data from anywhere. This increases the risk of data breach incidents… and has created a whole new area of information security policies.
Learn more about data security outside of the office and how working remotely can add another layer of risk to security.