Your boss should let you choose your IT hardware
Great news: We give you a good argument why your employer should give you free choice when it comes to hardware. A Jamf study, albeit a bit older, conducted in 2016, found that the bring your own device (BYOD) trend has not caught on, much to the chagrin of employers. In any case, it would be wiser to at least let the employees decide which hardware they want to work with. The study was conducted with 480 executives, managers and IT professionals from small, medium and large companies from around the world.
About 68 percent of the tech professionals surveyed feel more productive when working with their preferred hardware and 37 percent see themselves as more creative in the situation. Around 35 percent of respondents say they are both more collaborative and more proud of their workplace. A total of 42 percent are of the opinion that all of the points mentioned apply to them.
And yet hardly anyone wants to bring their own devices to work! Only 8 percent of the study participants want to combine their work and private life in this way and just 15 percent prefer not to have to lug around hardware all the time. 55 percent are now in favor of using a dedicated work device because they want to keep work life and private life strictly separate.
About half of those surveyed consider it to be "very to extremely important" to be able to choose the hardware themselves, 86 percent rate this as important. Around 77 percent want to stay with an employer that allows them to choose their hardware. It shouldn't come as a surprise then that a whopping 90 percent are in favor of making this choice part of every company's strategy.
But there is one important reason why companies should decide against this wish of their employees: the costs. After all, 72 percent of those surveyed would opt for a Mac and only 28 percent for a PC. When it comes to mobile devices, 75 percent prefer iOS devices such as an iPhone or iPad; 25 percent would opt for Android devices and only a handful (which can safely be forgotten) for a Blackberry. But making every employee happy with a full set of iOS and MacOS devices would cost a lot of money.
Jamf concludes that employers who want happy, long-term employees should give them the choice when purchasing hardware: “Companies looking for and retaining top developers and IT specialists need to know what is important to their employees and what drives them to do great work.” If there's a significant impact on someone's performance whether they're using a Mac or a PC, it's important to talk to management about it.
