Whatever happened to technology getting smaller and more integrated? A research project tracking banking executives has found that most of them carry two smartphones, a tablet and a laptop. The trade-off for the extra weight is the ability to better balance work and personal commitments by ignoring the ‘work’ phone out of hours.
Picture by David
Last year, Dr Kristine Dery of the University of Sydney and Judith MacCormick of the Australian Graduate School Of Management interviewed executives, following up on interviews five years before. They were surprised to discover that, without exception, the executives all carried a pair of smartphones. One was work-issued. One they had purchased themselves.
There were two apparent benefits from the approach, as Dr Dery explains in a release about the research:
While all of the executives we interviewed had been issued with a company smartphone, the security firewalls meant that the technology had significantly reduced capabilities. So to expand both work and non-work functions, such as access to social media, executives were also carrying their personal smartphone. Most executives chose to carry their personal devices to enhance mobile connectivity, but in doing so they also discovered an interesting side effect: the technology itself is helping to create those much sought-after boundaries between work and non-work activities. This means that the inconvenience of having to hold two smartphones is, in many instances, offset by the ability to create some degree of separation between work and home life.
This poses an obvious challenge for IT departments managing those devices, since work tasks are being carried out on both phones. However, with the BYO device trend now well-established and dominated by handsets, it seems unlikely to go away.
Dr Dery discusses the findings further in the video below:
Have you found using two phones makes life easier? Share your experiences in the comments.
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