By Jonathan Steele
January 25, 2023
If you’re reading this, chances are high you’re not a chef. You might make meals at home, but you don’t have a restaurant full of people to feed or a kitchen staff to manage. For just a moment though, let’s pretend that you did. There’s a lot to manage in a kitchen. Are the ingredients prepped? Is anything slowing the sous chefs and line cooks down? Are you low on any inventory? On a busy night in a popular restaurant, everything is pressing and immediate. Managing mobile workers without a Bring Your Own program can be similarly challenging.
It still matters if your team is prepped and capable of maintaining their workload. But another concern is whether employees have the right tools, whether they’re properly equipped for their role. That concern isn’t likely to come up in a restaurant kitchen.
At a high level, some mobile workers are receiving fixed stipends for the business use of personal items. Unfortunately, those stipends don’t hold up as much as an accurate reimbursement does. Employees also shoulder a large amount of administrative burden with ineffective policies. Finally, keeping records can prove challenging. With all of these concerns, your mobile workforce may look like a kitchen with some unintentional fires. Well, we’re here to share four reasons companies should be investing in BYO programs today to not only put out those fires but ensure they don’t flicker back to life.
According to Bitglass, 82% of all organizations promote BYO policies. That’s a high number. Yet it doesn’t reflect how impactful the right BYO program can be. Depending on the policy, employers can reimburse employees for business use of phones, tablets, home office, broadband and more! Companies looking to optimize spend often have a hard time rethinking their old processes. As a new year approaches, they look at the budget and make cuts in familiar places. There are better ways.
With the right BYO policy, employers can ensure reimbursements are based on the roles of their mobile workforce and reflect the business use of their assets. That means instead of overpaying (or underpaying) your workers with fixed stipends, companies can enforce fair and equitable reimbursements that reflect their mobile workers’ job personas, as well as the business use of smartphone, tablet, broadband and/or home office services. This may also help with recruiting outside talent and retaining talent already in the company (but more on that later). Finally, with a proper BYO policy, employers have more oversight over payments. Once accurate reimbursement becomes the standard, they can better understand which individuals receive role-based payments while others do not require the same level of device support.
Amalgam Insights says that 117 million personal devices are used for business. That’s a lot. With the right BYO policy, employers can boost reimbursement program engagement and visibility. That means knowing which employees receive what reimbursement and why. This process also simplifies T&E. Instead of relying on stipends that lack accuracy, or waiting for expense report submissions, companies deliver accurate reimbursements to employees. This also makes life easier for the administrators. No more tracking down phone usage or department heads to determine who gets what. With the right policy, admins have access to dashboards that share exactly who qualifies and receives which reimbursements.
Standing out in a competitive industry isn’t just a challenge for candidates. Companies look for ways they can gain an edge over other businesses hiring top talent. One reason the Bring Your Own program approach is so popular with companies is because of how popular it is with current and potential employees.
Whether the employee will be using their personal phone, tablet or home office, employers that reimburse them fairly and accurately gain an advantage. No longer limited to corporate-provided devices or settings, employees are free to easily interact with personal devices. Rather than submit expense reports for that personal use, the right policy means reimbursements are directly deposited where the employee prefers. The flexibility is a big draw for both current and potential employees, but the right BYO policy is also easy to configure and manage.
Companies work better when their employees are invested and engaged. Not reimbursing employees fairly is a great way to create a disgruntled workforce. But there is another big risk a company can avoid with the right BYO program.
Fair and accurate reimbursements based on real-life data support employees in a way fixed stipends simply cannot. For instance, a comprehensive data-backed Bring Your Own program should regularly update rate components to reflect local cost differences and changes. A consistent data-driven program will give employers peace of mind that rates are accurate and can protect the company from potential lawsuits around labor law infraction.
Instead of fearing scattered data and disorganization, the right vendor can provide centralized reimbursement records. Being able to access all necessary reimbursement information in one platform can be a serious game changer.
BYO is taking the business world by storm. According to Gartner, 32% of time for the Under 40 Workforce is spent working from a smartphone or tablet. Companies that enable their employees to use not only their personal devices, but also their home offices and broadband for work have a lot to gain. From optimized spend and increased efficiency to talent attraction and risk mitigation, BYO is the right choice. What comes next is figuring out the vendor to use. Interested in exploring your options? Learn more about the Motus BYO solution today.
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