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Malaysians want technological freedom at work

Restricting employees from using personal devices at work is no longer an effective strategy for companies concerned about security, as 68% of workers find a way around the bans.

A new study has found 66% of Malaysian employees prefer to work for firms that allow the use of personal devices.

The VMWare ‘New Way of Life 2013’ study found 70% of Malaysian respondents value technological mobility and 85% bring their own computing devices to work.

This highlights the changing lifestyle habits of an increasingly mobile workforce, said Laurence Si, country manager for VMWare Malaysia.

“However, 74% say their information technology (IT) departments do not provide them with relevant support to use these devices effectively in the workplaces,” he told Bernama.

According to the study, employees who were allowed to use their own devices were faster to respond to changes within the company, while 75% were more productive when working from outside the office and 71% were more efficient.

Because of this, 64% of employee expect corporate IT for provide fast networks access and nearly half of those surveyed want more guidance on how to integrate their personal devices into the business.

But Si said the high percentage of companies restricting this meant employees are finding their own workarounds (68%) or turning to Google for answers (64%) on how to use their own devices alongside corporate IT infrastructures.

“I speak to chief information officers and IT decision makers daily who say managing the challenges that arise from the influx of personal computing devices into the workplace can no longer be neglected,” said Si.

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