Employers realized long ago the benefits derived from providing their employees with smartphones, tablets or other handheld devices. Those benefits include gains in employee productivity and morale, resulting from employees having the flexibility to work from the road or during non-business hours. For many years, employers frequently chose to issue BlackBerrys to their work forces for these reasons. Employers also issued BlackBerrys to their work forces because the BlackBerry allowed employers to retain a high level of control over data access and security.1 However, since 2009, sales of BlackBerrys have declined dramatically,2 and more recently BlackBerry usage among businesses has substantially decreased while usage of iPhones and Android-based smartphones is on the rise.3
Consistent with these changes in the market for smartphones, employees are increasingly asking their employers that they be excused from using employer-issued mobile devices. Instead, employees overwhelmingly appear to be asking to connect to company email and data networks using their own smartphones. A survey of 3,000 workers reported by McKinsey last summer indicates that 80 percent of smartphones used for work are employee-owned.4
