How to Successfully Manage a Mobile and Social Workforce

I recently had the opportunity to co-author an article with Dux Raymond Sy for CMSWire that advised enterprise organizations on how to successfully manage mobile and social technologies for a multi-generational workforce. The rise of mobile and social technologies has not only changed the way that people access data, but also how they collaborate and interact as a whole. While these technologies have created a shift in how we communicate in our personal lives, many organizations have failed to embrace mobile and social technologies as a way to create a happier, more productive workforce. In the article, Dux and I outlined five key steps that organizations must take to maximize the business value of mobile and social technologies for a multi-generational workforce:

• Secure stakeholder buy-in:  To secure executive approval for mobile and social initiatives, you must emphasize the value that these solutions provide. Three key value propositions to focus on are (1) the increase in employee productivity, (2) reducing operational expenses, and (3) attracting and retaining the proper talent to grow and succeed.
• Map business value: Although stakeholder buy-in is an essential step, user adoption is the key to a successful implementation. Use the proposed technologies to help employees facing problems with communication and collaboration. By achieving these "quick wins" for the organization, you can help show value and get buy-in from the employees as well.
• Establish relevant policies: Now that business needs are identified and mapped to potential solutions, you must establish policies around connectivity, service delivery, and capacity to launch a successful initiative.
• Ensure security and compliance:  An essential part of any mobile or social deployment is risk mitigation. Organizations have to consider how to secure their data and comply with industry or federal regulations while providing their employees with the access they desire.
• Facilitate sustainable, secure sharing:  Although consumer-friendly file sharing solutions like Dropbox can help people collaborate on documents, it is not a viable solution for enterprise organizations because of the lack of security and control over content access. Organizations must provide secured sharing options to allow employees to be productive while avoiding putting sensitive digital assets at risk.

AvePoint seeks to help organizations develop mobile strategies and protect their digital assets from harm with AvePoint Perimeter. With the latest product update, organizations can mitigate risk of data breaches by providing their users with the ability to securely share SharePoint content with external users through Perimeter. In addition, Perimeter provides IT administrators and security officers with robust access controls – including multifactor authentication (MFA) and location-based controls – to ensure that mobile content can only be accessed by trusted users, on trusted devices, and within trusted locations. To read more about our five steps to manage a mobile and social workforce, please visit CMSWire.