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All work, no play makes employees dull: Firms [DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India)](DNA : Daily News & Analysis (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Bangalore: Companies are going all out to keep their employees' stress level at minimal. From organising pool competition to allowing employees to access or play on fun apps during office hours, companies of late have opened up to the idea of fun at workplace. This is in sharp contrast to olden days when even a simple chat over the the phone was considered waste of time. Today, many HR managers are of the view that it is stupid to believe or even think that employees will be able to work without any break for nine or sometimes even 10 to 11 hours. Hence, companies are devising new ways to make their employees feel at home. For instance, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a trend that is becoming increasingly prevalent, with Forrester Research predicting that 350 million employees will use smartphones and 200 million will bring their own mobile devices to the workplace by the year 2016. However, the real challenge of BYOD for businesses is in the area of security, as the IT administrators are unprepared to deal with various security issues that may occur from the use of personal devices in the workplace. "We live in an era where, rather than evading it, we have to embrace BYOD by optimising it for extreme productivity, while securing it with enterprise grade policies and mobility management tools," says Annie Mathew, director, alliances and business development, BlackBerry, India. Keeping up with the technological advancements, BlackBerry has developed "BlackBerry Balance" technology that enables BlackBerry devices to be used for business and personal purposes without compromising the end-user experience. This allow use of personal apps, while restricting copy and paste functionality to prevent business information from being shared. "Rather than having separate devices, employees can now access work as well as personal stuff through the same phone. It has been seen that such initiatives lead to increase in productivity by 30 minutes per day," says Mathew. Companies have now increasingly started using social tools as well to improve productivity. Microsoft's Yammer, for instance, is a tool that operates like Facebook, but is used for internal office communication and can be monitored. "I feel such tools are a great idea to flatten the whole hierarchy system. For product companies, the tool acts like a think-tank of ideas. You post an idea, and you have 10 other people giving you suggestions on how to improve it," says Ravi Shasthry, an expert in the enterprise social space. Even at Synechron, the company's private social network is the best way to get some daily dose of social networking and entertainment. "Discussions range from advice on photography to weekend getaway plans. Updates of all the major events across the company are posted here and employees get a chance to suggest ideas, give feedback and interact directly with the senior management. This platform is also used to share technology related news that keeps other employees updated," says Faisal Husain, founder & CEO, Synechron. Credit:Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya (c) 2014 @ 2014 DILIGENT MEDIA CORPORATION LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |