Providing employees with mobile devices, such as smartphone and laptops, appears to be a growing trend among EU companies, but Romania yet to catch on. According to EU statistical office Eurostat, 48 percent of companies across the EU provide portable devices for internet connection to at least some employees. Meanwhile, the figure in Romania is just 22 percent – the EU's lowest.

Greece was the only other country where less than 30 percent of firms handed out portable devices, in the rest of the Union, including neighboring Bulgaria and Hungary, more than 30 percent of companies provided mobile devices. Finland has the highest percentage of companies providing portable devices – 78 percent and the only EU country above the 70 percent mark.

The study also broke the figures down into small, medium and large companies. Here a consistent trend was seen everywhere in the EU. Without exception, more big companies provided portable devices than small or medium sized firms. In Romania, only 20 percent of small companies surveyed provided any employees with portable devices, against 28 percent of medium sized firms and 57 percent of large companies. The EU averages for percentages of small, medium and large companies providing mobile devices were 43, 71 and 88 percent respectively.

The split in type of portable device provided between portable computers on the one hand and smartphones and other devices was about 50:50 across the EU. When looking at how the devices were being used another consistent trend was seen. Nearly everyone with a company provided device used it for checking work email, as well as accessing public information on the internet. Slightly fewer employees used their work provided laptops, tablets and smartphones to modify documents or run dedicated business applications. Instead, a new trend seems to have emerged - bring your own devices to work, but pundits argue whether this will last on the long term.

editor@romania-insider.com