USA: Stingy employers are kidding themselves

Lia Timson
Thursday, 03 July 2008 09:08

IT People - Enterprise

But employers who quibble over who buys what electronic devices for business use have the wrong idea and risk loss of productivity, says analyst.

In stark contrast with Australia where staff retention and flexible work practices are the recurring themes in the fight against skills shortage, employers seem more concerned with the financial bottom line in the US.

Bill Hughes, principal analyst with research firm In-Stat, uncovered the stingy trend while trying to forecast the business uptake of ultra mobile PCs in the American market. He found that while employers happily pay for pagers (87%), they hesitate to purchase laptops (only 59% have) and smart phones for their mobile workers (56% have). Most surprising of all, seven in 10 bosses (73%) have not purchased the mobiles phones their staff members use in their daily grind.

“Before I asked users about their preference about future devices, I wanted to understand what devices they own now, what they carry regularly and who paid for them,” says Hughes.

“My perspective is that there is a staring contest going on between companies and their employees to see who will blink first and buy the device that will make them more productive.”

Drawing from a sample of 1759 people in various industries, he also found workers are the ones paying for GPS mapping devices (72%) and even calculators (81%). (Find out more on Page 2.)