Technology and mobility in the workplace go hand in hand. Laptops have allowed us to leave our offices and have given us the freedom to travel anywhere in the world and still be able to access files stored in corporate databases. Cell phones and smartphones have extended that freedom, allowing us to set up virtual offices from just about anywhere. Cloud computing technologies potentially extend this mobility even further by providing access to critical files from almost everywhere on the planet. We’re no longer limited to files on our computers, and we don’t have to tunnel into the corporate network via VPN. Technology has untethered the world. As Peter Parker quoted his Uncle Ben in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We can amend the phrase to read, “With great freedom comes great responsibility,” or even, “With greater mobility in the workforce comes a huge challenge for companies to manage.”
The logical solution is to hire a mobile operations manager for the IT department to oversee the increasing use of virtual employees, virtual teams and the mobile technologies that allow this to happen.
In reality, the solution isn’t so simple. In the last 20 years, since the evolution of technologies that enable mobility, the boundaries between work, leisure and family responsibilities have blurred. Mobile technologies are no longer just part of our work lives; they are ingrained in our everyday lives and are part of our culture. Therefore, CIOs need to look beyond managing mobility as a technology and think more about managing mobility as part of the company’s culture.