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Free IT policy templates now available
May 06, 2014
IT policies give your business shelter
Do you know what your staff are looking at online? Are you confident you're taking proper care of customer data? Is uncontrolled social media use rife in your company?
When you're running a business, sometimes keeping a grip on technology can feel like a losing battle.
Many business owners already suffer from too-much-to-do-too-little-time syndrome. Throw in tech-savvy employees running wild using their own tablets and software, and it's tempting to just let them get on with it.
Tempting, yes. Wise? No.
Policies to keep IT under control
No matter how much freedom you give your staff, it's important to retain some control over how technology is used in your business. Because when you have control, you can be confident.
You can be confident staff aren't wasting time. You can be confident you comply with data protection laws. And you can be confident you have a proper structure within which your business technology operates.
Your IT policies help establish this structure. They describe how technology should be used in your business, so your employees know what is and isn't allowed.
In short: they protect your company and your staff.
Get started with IT policies
Your IT policies don't need to run to hundreds of pages or contain complicated legalese. They just need to cover the essentials and be easily understood by your employees.
In fact, short and sweet beats long and detailed every time. IT policies should be documents your employees can read, understand and put into practice.
To help you create key IT policies for your business, we've created some free templates. Download them today and use them however you like in your company:
- Data protection policy
- Internet use policy
- Email use policy
- Social media policy
- Website privacy policy
You're welcome to just fill in the gaps, or copy the text to use as the basis for your own policies. Just keep in mind that every business is different, so it's best to get all your IT policies double-checked by a lawyer before you put them into place.
A friendly IT supplier might be willing to help too, especially if they already provide IT support for your company.
It's time to loosen up your business IT
November 11, 2011
Put your feet up and relax about your business IT (Image: Cristian Borquez on Flickr)
There's nothing wrong with being risk averse, and there's nothing wrong with not wanting your staff to do silly things or waste time with their company computers.
Those are the - perfectly logical reasons - why many businesses lock down their systems tightly. They want to stop employees opening the wrong kinds of files, installing dodgy software or accessing social networks.
Fine. But as someone who's fairly IT literate, I've always found locked-down PCs highly offputting. By and large, I know what I'm doing and I know what I need to do my job. I just want the IT department to let me get on with it.
Young workers want more flexibility
A recent piece of research has got me wondering whether this might be a growing sentiment. The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report suggests that young workers (by which it means students and professionals under 30) take many factors into account when deciding where they want to work.
It's not all about the salary - the internet, flexibility and social networks can all make a difference. For instance:
- More than half of students either wouldn't accept a job offer from a company that banned access to social media, or would find a way to circumvent the ban.
- One in four employees say that not being able to work remotely and flexibly would influence their job decisions - they might leave a job sooner, for instance.
- Two out of five people would opt for a lower paying job over a higher paying one, if it offered more flexibility over use of IT and social media, and more mobility.
The overall impression is that younger workers want more choice over what IT they use and how they use it at work.
They want more flexibility in where and when they work. And they want to be allowed to use social networks because they believe services like Facebook and Twitter are key communication tools.
Is it time to loosen up your IT?
I can almost hear the tuts from IT managers at the idea of loosening restrictions, allowing people to use their own devices and turning off web blocking software.
But here's the thing: it's happening already, whether you like it or not. If you've blocked Facebook on your work computers, your employees will just be accessing it on their phones.
Then you've got mobile devices. You might think you've banned staff using their own mobile gadgets for work. But what's to stop them loading documents onto their iPad to review on the train, or connecting a smart phone to the company Wi-Fi?
Times are changing for office IT
Times are changing. The so-called 'millennials' - the next generation of workers - have grown up using IT and computers their entire lives. We don't need to teach them how to use it at work, because they already know.
Maybe, just maybe, if we open systems up and give people more freedom to use the tools and devices they want, they'll be able to do better work.
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