Today's Boston Globe carries a short piece by business reporter Chris Reidy that is likely to cause some CIO arm hairs to stand at attention. Employees bypassing IT departments confirms findings that we published with two business school professors in Harvard Business Review in May '04 ("Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?").
In the study, designed by USC's Marshall School of Business Professor Ann Majchrzak and UNC'S Kenan-Flagler School of Business Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship Arvind Malhotra, we found that 50% of "far-flung team" members used Instant Messaging (IM) even when their companies prohibited it. The Yankee Group, whose research is reported today, says that only one-third of the companies they surveyed offer IM. But that doesn't deter employees who regularly find the best tools for their work, regardless of corporate IT policies.
Moral of the story: CIOs, Listen Up! Pay attention to the natural resources that your employees gravitate toward. Everyone wants work to be easier and so those with the energy will seek out those tools that serve them best.
From Boston.com (under 500 words so OK to quote in its entirety):
Monday, August 6, 2007
Employees bypassing IT departments
The widespread adoption of consumer technologies in the workplace, such as outside instant messaging services, poses a potential threat to corporate information-technology departments, according to a new report.
The report, titled "Zen and the Art of Rogue Employee Management," is from the Yankee Group, a Boston-based market research group focused on global connectivity.
According to the report, nearly 50 percent of employees feel more empowered than IT to control their personal IT environment, a development that could lead to a potentially "hazardous mix of secured and unsecured applications in the enterprise."
Only about a third of companies offer instant-messaging, and when a company doesn't, many employees will resort to using consumer IM products from the likes of AOL or Yahoo to communicate sensitive company information to colleagues and customers; these consumer products lack the "robust security" measures that are a key feature of workplace IM offerings, noted Joshua Holbrook, manager of the Yankee Group Enterprise Research program.
To address this challenge, the Yankee Group suggests that corporate IT departments adopt a "Zen-like approach" that doesn't seek to dictate policy and enforce standards but rather looks to set guidelines and steer employees in the right direction.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
