Smartphones: Corporate Shackles or Tool for Work-Life Balance?

By Thomas Wailgum

MON, JANUARY 04, 2010 — CIO — Any and all executives or managers looking to get more productivity from their information workers—and, really, what company isn't shamelessly espousing a "more with less" philosophy these days?—might want to pay attention to the following strategy: Set your workers free from the office.

"Teleworking," or working from home/Starbucks/not-within-corporate-walls, of course, is nothing new. High-powered laptops, ubiquitous broadband and Wi-Fi connections, and even-my-grandmother-has-one cell phones have all enabled a seamless virtual work-experience for the modern employee.

But new survey data from Forrester Research shows that tech-savvy information workers want to be connected to (yet untethered from) the office even more—they want smartphones. And they want them badly: Many are even ready, willing and able to foot all or part of the bill to gain access to corporate e-mail and documents, as well as stay connected to their work lives—often at the expense of their personal lives. More...

01-05-2010 07:39