While reading the Wall Street Journal last Friday, I came across an article that highlighted one company that was giving its employees money to purchase phones. Rather than impose a corporate standard and mandate every employee to conform to its cell phone choice, the company gave its employees the freedom to choose which phones to purchase. The employees bought their own phones, filed their expense reports and took more responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of the technology.
I was fascinated. Why can't much more of IT function this way? Sure there are compatibility, privacy, security and support issues to take care of in such as scenario. But these can be addressed or certainly contained. For example, I work for an organization that is filled with smart technologists. They don't need an IT department to tell them what is the best cell phone or computer to use. They'd much larger purchase their own phones and choose how to link to the corporate network.
Our economy is increasingly being driven by trust, it is time we trusted our employees more. And there's no better way to do that than by putting more of an IT budget in their own hands. Click to Gartner's High Performance Workplace to read more about this emerging technology subculture which they call "employee-enabling" versus "MIS-centric.
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