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Enabling a Mobile Workforce through Bring Your Own Device
A key goal of the Administration’s Digital Government Strategy (PDF/HTML), released this past May, is to enable the Federal government’s increasingly mobile workforce to perform their official duties even when away from the office by accessing government information and services anywhere, anytime, on any device. By exploring options to increase the mobility of government workers, the Administration can save taxpayer dollars and improve its service to the American people. As the Chief Information Officer at the Office of Administration in the Executive Office of the President, I’ve seen firsthand how the consumerization of Information Technology (IT) is changing the government workforce and raising expectations for how Federal IT leaders can meet the needs of their customers while also adhering to security and records requirements.
One way to meet customer expectations is to let employees utilize personally-owned technology devices to do their work – a concept commonly known as bring-your-own-device (BYOD). BYOD is a growing trend that is still in its infancy, but shows early promise as a driver of cost savings, increased productivity, and improved user experience.
Over the past couple of months, I led a Working Group that studied successful BYOD programs launched at federal- and state-level government agencies. Drawing upon the experience of those forward-leaning agencies, we pulled together a BYOD toolkit that includes key considerations, best practices, and examples of existing policies. The key takeaway of our efforts is that while BYOD may not be right for every agency, it can, given the right environment, succeed in a secure and records-managed way.
Today, as a core deliverable of the Digital Government Strategy, the Federal CIO Council and the Digital Services Advisory Group released the BYOD toolkit as a resource for agencies contemplating implementation of BYOD programs.
Following the example of successful BYOD pilot programs, the Working Group has adopted an agile, iterative development process; today’s release is just the beginning of the conversation. While the toolkit is a great starting point for agencies considering BYOD programs, our work is not finished. We still need to address the more complicated issues related to BYOD, including how the government can reimburse employees for voice and data costs as well as additional security, privacy, and legal considerations, including supply chain risk management and legal discovery. I look forward to continuing the dialogue with my government and industry partners as we work together to capitalize on the promise of BYOD.
