The Mobile Work Force Today

iPass Inc. (NASDAQ: IPAS), a provider of enterprise mobility services, recently published its quarterly Mobile Workforce Report. The report found that 27 percent of mobile employees surveyed are using a tablet, typically an iPad, for work. While most mobile employees think that in the next five years there will be just one über device, that same mobile employee is carrying 2.68 devices for work today. iPass is calling these multiple devices the mobile stack, the new unit of computing that includes a laptop, a smartphone, and also a tablet.

"Tablet and smartphone use in the enterprise is being driven by the growth of cloud-based applications, in addition to the availability of these devices being reasonably priced," said Steven Wastie, senior vice president marketing and product management at iPass. "User experience and economics drive this mobile stack phenomenon which shows every sign of expanding rapidly amongst the mobilocracy — a powerful class of worker who relies on mobile devices for greater productivity — as cloud computing finds a greater foothold with users both on a professional and personal level."

The report, which drew from the experiences of more than 3,500 mobile employees at 1,100 enterprises worldwide, also found a 10 percent decline in preference for laptops as mobile employees increasingly prefer smartphones and tablets.

Click through for results from an iPass survey on technology usage by mobile workers.

The report found that 27 percent of mobile employees surveyed are using a tablet, typically an iPad, for work. While most mobile employees think that in the next five years there will be just one über device, that same mobile employee is carrying 2.68 devices for work today.

Twenty percent of mobile workers selected a tablet as their one device of choice, while 49 percent selected the smartphone (down from 63 percent in 2010), compared to 27 percent who prefer a laptop (down from 37 percent).

Sixty-five percent of mobile workers surveyed reported that they use a tablet for applications like sending and receiving e-mail, surfing the Internet, watching video content and reading electronic books, newspapers and magazines. Twenty-seven percent report that they use a tablet for work.

Fifty-nine percent of mobile workers use Wi-Fi on their smartphone at least one hour a day. Fifty-seven percent are satisfied with their mobile operator's network coverage but 22 percent are dissatisfied with the cellular network speed.

Seventy-one percent of mobile workers would go on a data diet if wireless carriers increased charges for cellular data access, Twenty-nine percent would not change their behavior mostly because their employer pays the phone bill, while 22 percent would limit use to critical access.

Ninety-four percent of mobile workers will troubleshoot a problem themselves, while 13 percent will not contact the IT help desk at all when they have a technical problem.

Those 35 and older feel more productive working outside of the office, in contrast with those 34 and under who feel most productive working in the office — not the generation gap that most would think.