IT departments are out of sync with their workforce - most IT departments throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) cannot meet the mobility needs of today's employees.
This is according to VMware research, undertaken to discover the business implications brought about by a lack of mobile readiness in terms of managing mobile devices and applications.
The study involved 1 800 IT decision-makers and 3 600 office workers in companies with more than 100 employees across the EMEA, and was conducted between March and April.
It revealed it takes three weeks for the average IT department to equip staff and get them set up with mobility tools and applications they need to do their jobs. This time lag increases to four weeks when it involves contract workers, which can compromise the value of new employees, according to the research.
Moreover, it discovered 43% of IT departments believe it's their responsibility to restrict employees' access to mobile tools and applications outside of working hours ? 41% feel under pressure to do this and 57% admit it's now become necessary.
On the other hand, employees (70%) do not agree their employer should restrict access to mobile apps and tools. As it stands, the vast majority (82%) state they do not yet have full access to the mobile tools needed to work as productively as they can.
Also, the study showed more than a quarter (28%) would side-step the IT department to obtain the mobile tools needed to get the job done - demanding greater mobile enablement from the business, rather than further restrictions.
According to Nick Black, business manager, end-user computing, sub-Saharan Africa at VMware, employees are less productive because they are frustrated with the IT-mandated devices. "The device may be unfamiliar to the users, so productivity suffers until that user becomes efficient on it.
"With the pace of business today, taking three weeks to equip staff with the tools they need to work isn't a viable option for organisations looking to survive and thrive in the mobile cloud era," says Black.
He points out any delay in getting employees functioning at full speed may lead to organisations handing over the competitive edge to other companies. "Businesses need to empower employees to collaborate with whoever they need to, from any location, at any time, while minimising security risks."
Most IT departments' approach to mobility is everyone gets the same and if that is not good enough, the users have to "make do", says Black.
He believes IT should adopt an approach to manage users, not devices. Data loss through device loss is a real concern and as such IT has a genuine reason to be concerned, he adds.
However, if IT begins taking a user management approach, this can be mitigated with the right use of technology available, concludes Black.
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