Legal issues and risks impacting wireless workforce

Abstract

The recent demand for wireless technology at enterprise level has attracted the attention of many CEOs in order to address any potential legal challenges arising due to ignorance from organisations' part, or address employee concerns with respect to health and safety issues, or to improve employee well-being, or just to avoid any expensive legal battles because these changing legal frameworks may have a profound impact on organisations. This has resulted in examining the behaviour of the workforce because the increased use of various mobile devices may result in the removal of the distinction between private and professional workplaces. Further, this mobility sometimes dictates the workforce to adapt flexible work styles according to external conditions to realise efficiency gains. These 'flexible' aspects have forced enterprises to support their work force with devices, tools, processes and collaborative internal and external frameworks in order to achieve efficiency. However, in real life environment, some of these frameworks may conflict with domestic and international laws, union agreements and other individual employment contracts. In the mobile domain, these issues also vary by regions, economic conditions and cultural attitudes. This paper introduces the changing IT workforce due to the influence of wireless technology and provides a discussion on various issues that need to be addressed by organisations.