When this article was first published in 2015, the mobile workplace was a forecast: staff would soon work from anywhere, on their own phones and tablets. For email, documents and meetings that evolution is complete. The challenges of the mobile workplace that remain are narrower and more practical. They concern the business systems that were built for a desk in the office, the security of devices the company does not own, and work that happens where there is no signal.
How the mobile workplace evolved
The change came in stages. Email reached the phone first. Then office software moved to subscription services such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, which made documents and calendars available from any device with a browser. The pandemic then sent whole offices home at once, and many never returned to five days a week at a desk.
The law has followed. In Great Britain, employees now have a legal right to request flexible working from their first day in a job. If you employ people, check the current rules on GOV.UK or with an adviser, because how a request must be handled is set out in some detail.
Two groups were left behind by all this. The first is the people who were always mobile: engineers, drivers, surveyors, care workers. Many still carry paper, or ring the office to ask someone to look something up. The second is the line-of-business system, the software that runs the operation itself, such as job scheduling, stock or case management. Email moved to the cloud because its supplier moved it. A system written for one business only moves when that business decides to move it.
One worry from the original article has largely gone. The concern then was the number of incompatible platforms. A web application now runs in the browser on a Windows laptop, an iPad and an Android phone alike, which is why most new business systems are built that way.
Challenge 1: the system that only works in the office
The usual case is a desktop program, a Microsoft Access database on a shared drive, or a web system that can only be reached from inside the office network. Staff get round it by connecting to an office PC from home, or by printing job sheets and typing the results in later.
There are four ways out, and they differ a great deal in cost.
| Option | What it involves | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Remote desktop or VPN | Staff connect to an office PC or server and use the system as it is | Occasional home working on a laptop. Awkward on a phone |
| Move the hosting | The system stays as it is but runs in a data centre instead of the office | A web system that is sound but limited by the office server and line |
| Add a web front end | New browser screens for the tasks done away from the office, on top of the existing database | A system that works well but is tied to the desk |
| Replace | A new web application takes over | A desktop or Access system that has reached its limits |
Remote desktop is a stopgap. It gives a full-sized desktop screen on a small device and needs a steady connection. An Access database in particular is not designed to be opened over a slow or unreliable link, and doing so risks damaging the file. Our page on cloud migration describes the second route, and the one on replacing an Access database the fourth. The third, modernising in stages, is often the least disruptive, because the rules built into the existing system stay where they are.
Challenge 2: devices the company does not own
Letting staff use their own phones is convenient and saves buying hardware. It also means company data sits on devices you do not control, which may be out of date, shared with family or lost on a train.
If you hold Cyber Essentials, the government-backed security certification, or a customer requires you to, this is not optional reading. The scheme’s requirements document, version 3.3 of April 2026, states that user-owned devices which access organisational data or services are in scope. Devices used only for calls, text messages or a multi-factor authentication app are out of scope. A personal phone that reads company email therefore counts.
There are two broad ways to manage it. Mobile device management (MDM) puts the whole device under company control. Mobile application management (MAM) controls only the work apps and the data inside them, and leaves the rest of the phone alone. Microsoft Intune, for example, supports both, and under MAM can remove company data from a personal phone without touching the owner’s own content. The second approach is usually the easier one to ask of staff.
How a system is built affects how much there is to protect. A web application that keeps its data on the server leaves little on the device. If it signs people in through the company’s own directory, with multi-factor authentication, then access ends everywhere on the day someone leaves.
Personal data on personal devices is still your responsibility under data protection law. The National Cyber Security Centre publishes guidance on bring-your-own-device schemes, and it is worth taking advice on your policy before relying on it.
Challenge 3: poor or no signal
Office staff at home have broadband. Field staff have plant rooms, basements, rural lanes and the far end of a warehouse. A system that needs a live connection for every tap will be abandoned for paper within a week.
The answer is to decide, task by task, what must work offline. Viewing today’s jobs and recording what was done usually must. Searching the whole customer history usually need not. Offline working has a cost, because the system has to hold data on the device, send it when a connection returns, and have a rule for what happens when two people have changed the same record in the meantime. That rule is a business decision, so expect to be asked for it.
Whether this calls for an app installed from an app store or a web application that works offline is a separate question, covered in native app or web app.
Challenge 4: small screens and different tasks
Shrinking a desktop screen to fit a phone does not work. A scheduling screen designed for a wide monitor, with forty columns and a week of jobs, is unusable at the width of a hand.
It also misses the point. The tasks done away from the desk are few and different: look up a job, record what was done, take a photograph, capture a signature, scan a barcode. A mobile version should do those few things quickly, with large controls and very little typing, and leave the rest for the office. A phone can also do things a desktop cannot, such as attaching a location or a photograph to a record without anyone typing a word.
If the result is to be an app for your own staff, five features an enterprise mobile app needs lists what to put in the specification.
Where to start
List every system the business depends on and answer four questions for each.
- Can it be used away from the office, and how?
- On whose devices, and what would be left on them if one were lost?
- What happens when there is no signal?
- Which tasks are still done on paper, or typed in later by someone else?
The row with the most paper and re-typing in the fourth column is normally the place to begin. It is also the easiest to justify, because the hours lost are already being paid for.