You need to keep your road warriors fighting that good fight, especially when they’re on the go. But how do you keep your employees at peak productivity when their travels take them across national borders, especially in a bring your own device (BYOD) environment?
The Enterprise Connectivity Series has already published some great advice on how to keep your road warriors connected to the network for less when they’re abroad. Everything mentioned there applies as well, but in a BYOD environment, there are a few other considerations that come in to play, both for you and for the end user.
- Consider the Plan
For those who manage a large number of road warriors, BYOD was once a bit of a challenge. Then, as now, the very nature of the concept means that cell phones and the related service contracts with carriers are not a corporate responsibility. That’s great for users who putter around the province, and even those who roam from coast-to-coast, but for businesses whose users travel internationally it means the risk of losing out on preferred corporate roaming packages that can help rein in the roaming spend.
If your BYOD model involves users paying the carrier directly and expensing business-related charges to the company, there is good news for you. Canadian carriers have innovated their roaming offerings for consumer phone plans. Rogers, for example, now offers ROAM LIKE HOMETM, a package that allows those individuals on its popular Share EverythingTM consumer phone plans to roam in the U.S. or many European countries with unlimited phone and text to both the eligible country they’re visiting and Canada, and to use their existing data plan whilst traveling. At $5 per day while roaming in the U.S. and $10 per day while roaming in an eligible European country and capped at charging for a maximum 10 days per month, it’s a very affordable way to keep even the heaviest road warrior at peak productivity while on the road.
- Get The Right Tools
Of course, not all BYOD policies involve employees getting reimbursed for consumer service plans. Enterprises may also choose to offer corporate plans on personally-owned devices, and in doing so may provide access to additional tools to help the enterprise understand and manage roaming expenses. A solid BYOD solution should offer features that help you monitor roaming expenditures in real-time and warn both users and administrators if abnormal or excessive usage is detected. For example, Rogers offers a set of services for managing roaming expenses – Rogers Telecom Expense Management Solutions and Rogers Smart Usage – that can help you manage roaming expenses in real-time even in a BYOD environment.
- Spell It Out
Whichever mode of payment you choose for your BYOD policy, make sure it (You DO have a BYOD policy, and it IS up-to-date, right?) clearly explains the responsibilities and expectations of both the employer and the employee when it comes to out-of-country travel. This policy needs to define what kinds of packages and usage are considered reasonable and what will be reimbursed, and what is not and will not. Sign up for a very affordable $5-a-day all-you-can-eat roaming package? The employer will take the bill for that. Forget and spend two weeks using heavy data at a foreign carrier’s exorbitant pay-per-byte rate without monitoring usage? That’s just not going to fly.
The more granular this policy is, the more frequently it’s updated as technologies and best practices change, and the better communicated it is within your enterprise, the more likely you are to have smooth sailing with your road warriors.
With the right tools and the right policy, keeping your users happy and connected while outside the country can be easy and affordable.