What is a mobile workforce?

The mobile workforce goes well beyond simply working from home. With the advent of sophisticated mobile devices, mobile employees can now access software applications and data that were once only available at company headquarters.

Because many technologies are increasingly portable, easier to use and affordable, the mobile workforce is becoming more prevalent. Field workers in industries such as healthcare, construction, and agriculture can perform complex tasks onsite or on the go.

Mobile work differs from traditional remote working, in which employees work from a home office. The mobile workforce specifically refers to those employees who don’t work from a single fixed location. This includes hybrid workers who split their time between home and the office and deskless workers whose jobs require movement during the workday. Travel nurses, retail employees who rotate between stores, and telecommunications field technicians are all mobile workers.

Mobile employees make up most of the workforce today. Comparatively few workers are “tethered” to a single place, like a central office or store.

Many companies embraced workforce mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shifting traditionally location-based jobs—like school teachers and bank employees—to remote work allowed organizations to maintain business continuity during the crisis.

But the growth of the mobile workforce has also been fueled by longer-term technological and business changes. As advanced mobile devices empower employees to work from anywhere, companies that adopt mobile workforces saw benefits like:

Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the importance of enabling mobile work when possible. The challenge is giving mobile workers remote access to critical business software while remaining collaborative, productive, and secure.

When building a mobile workforce, company leaders may need to think about the following:

Mobile employees want to choose their own devices. They expect workplace technology to deliver a similar user experience as consumer apps and devices. Organizations may need to create bring your own device (BYOD) policies and processes that govern a wide range of software and hardware, including laptops, wearables, tablets, smartphones, and more.

Employees that use their own devices and apps for work can create security vulnerabilities. Employees may bring shadow IT—IT assets that are used without official approval or oversight—to the company network. Even approved mobile apps and devices can pose problems if employees access sensitive data through unsecured public wifi networks.

Companies often track mobile workers and their assets to maintain compliance and optimize workflows. For example, companies may use location tracking to connect field technicians with the closest jobs. However, employees may object to being tracked, especially if they’re using their own devices.

Developing custom mobile apps for multiple platforms can be costly and complex. On the other hand, maintaining apps from multiple third-party vendors can make proper IT management difficult. Software providers such as IBM not only develop mobile apps but also offer integrated mobile app management solutions.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies allowed employees to work remotely to ensure business continuity. Coming out of the pandemic, many companies have kept these remote and mobile work arrangements. New technologies have also made a remote workforce more practical.

Tools like Asana, Slack, Webex, Zoom, and Google Calendar make virtual work and collaboration among the mobile workforce easier and more efficient. However, these new tools and apps can pose a challenge for effective IT management. Other innovations in mobile technology—such as biometric readers, wearables, voice control, near-field communications (NFC), virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR)—are also improving communications and business workflows.

Until recently, one of the key barriers to implementing mobile technologies was the lack of a reliable, fast wireless signal. With the introduction of 5G wireless, mobile workers can share even massive files with associates and collaborate over video without lag or disruptions.

Innovations like 5G allow even small businesses to tap into AR and VR technologies for enhanced communication and collaboration. Workers can perform complex tasks with information that is delivered on demand using AR. For example, building and engineering workers can plan new projects with AR devices, and supply chain management and inventory picking might be accomplished through AR as well.

Organizations will likely continue adopting new software tools to better manage large-scale transitions of office employees to remote and mobile work. As part of this transition, companies may form strategic relationships with major software and equipment vendors and network service providers to minimize disruptions to infrastructure and services.

Demographic trends have also influenced the growth of mobile workforces. Combined, millennials and Gen. Z comprise the largest portion of the workforce. Research shows these workers prefer flexible work.

While some mobile employees rely on apps like Slack and Asana to do their work, many companies use specialized mobile workforce management tools to support mobile workforce security and productivity.

Mobile workforce management software (MWM) is a broad category of platforms that help companies manage employees who work outside of a central office. Different mobile workforce management solutions have different features and functions, but many support scheduling, task assignments and tracking, and communications and status updates. Some MWM tools can be used for back-office human capital management tasks like onboarding and payroll.

Field service management tools are MWM platforms designed for managing field workers who install, maintain, or repair equipment, systems, or assets outside of company premises. Managers and technicians often use field service management software for job order processing, scheduling and dispatch automation, and payment collection, among other things.

Unified endpoint management (UEM) solutions allow companies to monitor, manage, and secure all end-user devices—desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, wearables, and more—from a single console, regardless of operating system or location. With UEM, a company can set and enforce mobile security, device management, and app management policies for all devices on a network. IT teams no longer need separate tools to manage devices for on-premises and mobile workforces.