Work/Personal phone - one account for multiple devices?

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Handle9

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#2519429 8-Jul-2020 16:52

thewabbit:
I have a personal phone, that I pay the monthly bill. However each pay slip I get a 'contribution' to my phone bill which over the course of the year pays for ~70% of my total yearly phone bill.
My signature and business cards have that number on it. Works for me. Some people have company phones, but I refused that.

It depends on your role but generally what you have described is a recipe for disaster from the company side.

Phone numbers are like email addresses. Employees shouldn't be in a position to leave and still be contactable at the same address, that point of contact should go to the company.

It varies case by case of course but I'd never let someone in a customer facing role use their personal email or mobile to contact customers.

BlinkyBill

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#2519441 8-Jul-2020 17:11

I pay for all of my team’s phone expenses, with the proviso they are ‘reasonable’. Every two years I pay $900 towards a phone of their choice (they pay anything extra). If the person leaves, I ask for the phone back, excess costs are lost. Some take this up every two years and some only when their phone becomes non-functional. If the phone is over two years old, it becomes the persons to keep.

If the person wants to take the phone number I don’t have an issue with that.

Everyone seems happy with the arrangement and, admittedly I have very few leavers, but some take the number and some don’t. I suggest pretty much everyone including me inter-mingles personal and business usage.

To me it’s a give-and-take situation and too much goes into ‘rules’. Just be reasonable.

PolicyGuy

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#2519455 8-Jul-2020 17:58

Handle9:
Phone numbers are like email addresses. Employees shouldn't be in a position to leave and still be contactable at the same address, that point of contact should go to the company.

It varies case by case of course but I'd never let someone in a customer facing role use their personal email or mobile to contact customers.

And worse, when their employer gets embroiled in a court case in a couple of years time, they can never get access to the email the employee sent from their Gmail account because they never knew it existed.
But their legal adversary does have it because they received it in their corporate email system. And then they produce it in court, and your lawyer turns ashen grey.

And just to heap insult upon injury, if your employer is a (local or regional) government agency, they are now also in breach of the Public Records Act for failing to properly preserve a Public Record. "But we never knew about it" doesn't wash too well.

Handle9

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#2519465 8-Jul-2020 18:23

BlinkyBill:
I pay for all of my team’s phone expenses, with the proviso they are ‘reasonable’. Every two years I pay $900 towards a phone of their choice (they pay anything extra). If the person leaves, I ask for the phone back, excess costs are lost. Some take this up every two years and some only when their phone becomes non-functional. If the phone is over two years old, it becomes the persons to keep.

If the person wants to take the phone number I don’t have an issue with that.

Everyone seems happy with the arrangement and, admittedly I have very few leavers, but some take the number and some don’t. I suggest pretty much everyone including me inter-mingles personal and business usage.

To me it’s a give-and-take situation and too much goes into ‘rules’. Just be reasonable.

You're in the fortunate position of being able to know all your employees.

Once you get to a certain size it becomes more difficult without fairly straightforward defined policies.

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#2519473 8-Jul-2020 18:37

Admittedly, I've only worked for two different companies in the last 20yrs but both have provided a mobile phone for business use and operated a personal "fair use" policy. As a person who uses a mobile phone as a business tool first and foremost I've never felt the need to carry a second device. My phone is managed but its not intrusive and I'm able to do everything I need to do with my phone. My current employers fair use policy could be loosely described as "don't be a dick". If their fair use policy was more restrictive I'm not sure what I would do to be honest. In my career a corporate device is a necessary business tool and I have no interest in carrying a personal device.

The last mobile phone I bought myself and paid for on a plan was a Nokia 8210!. I doubt I'll ever buy another phone until I retire or take a step back in my career later in life.

andrewNZ

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#2519493 8-Jul-2020 19:36

I'm another dual SIM phone advocate.

I'm allowed to use my work number for as much personal stuff as I like as long as I don't blow out the plan.
I have no work email address, so that makes it easier.

I use 2 Gmail accounts and I keep personal contacts on one and work contacts on the other. That allows me to easily purge old work contacts, AND, it allows the phone to automatically choose the correct sim to call from.

Having numbers on 2 networks is a big benefit. My house has terrible cell reception, and I'm on call a lot. I've got call forwarding on my work number if it has no reception so I don't miss calls.
I've also been in several locations with no reception on one network, in these situations, I'm happy to use my personal data for downloading manuals or number for calling the office.
And, having no home phone, it's nice to know that I have options if a network goes down.

All my coworkers have been with the company for many years and have work numbers only. They have verbal agreements that they retain the number when they leave, nothing in writing. I've seen it go bad once already.

Blurtie

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#2519809 9-Jul-2020 09:18

Thanks all for the replies so far - particularly highlighting the pitfalls of mixing work with your personal number. Has definitely solidified my decision to keep the two separate. I've had this personal number for a long time, so it would be a pita if I had to change it due to such a simple thing as getting a new job...

Any dual sim phone recommendations here? I know a new Note will be dropping soon - so will keep an eye on that.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

BlinkyBill

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#2519853 9-Jul-2020 10:06

Handle9:
BlinkyBill:

I pay for all of my team’s phone expenses, with the proviso they are ‘reasonable’. ....

To me it’s a give-and-take situation and too much goes into ‘rules’. Just be reasonable.

You're in the fortunate position of being able to know all your employees.

Once you get to a certain size it becomes more difficult without fairly straightforward defined policies.

i do know my team, but my approach comes from somewhere else. I trust my staff to keep databases with private data secure, to maintain IT systems that pay $billions annually, to advise businesses and govt agencies on $m of IT expenditure - why wouldn’t I trust these same individuals to have useful tools and not abuse them?

I believe, and so does my team, that the policies are straightforward. It’s about treating people like responsible adults.

1101

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#2519994 9-Jul-2020 12:06

BlinkyBill:

i do know my team, but my approach comes from somewhere else. I trust my staff to keep databases with private data secure, to maintain IT systems that pay $billions annually, to advise businesses and govt agencies on $m of IT expenditure - why wouldn’t I trust these same individuals to have useful tools and not abuse them?

I believe, and so does my team, that the policies are straightforward. It’s about treating people like responsible adults.

You'll only have a real issues if someone is fired/laid off/disgruntled :-)

If I get laid off/new job etc, some of the companies most important clients will be ringing my personal cellphone.
You can imagine the conversation 'I need help with this . Can you do this job for me '

BlinkyBill

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#2520004 9-Jul-2020 12:25

1101:

BlinkyBill:

i do know my team, but my approach comes from somewhere else. I trust my staff to keep databases with private data secure, to maintain IT systems that pay $billions annually, to advise businesses and govt agencies on $m of IT expenditure - why wouldn’t I trust these same individuals to have useful tools and not abuse them?

I believe, and so does my team, that the policies are straightforward. It’s about treating people like responsible adults.

You'll only have a real issues if someone is fired/laid off/disgruntled :-)

If I get laid off/new job etc, some of the companies most important clients will be ringing my personal cellphone.
You can imagine the conversation 'I need help with this . Can you do this job for me '

I know this is a bit naive, but I have faith in people to act responsibly no matter the relationship between employer and employee - after all, the customer isn’t involved in the employment relationship. Bad actors get bad reputations.

d3Xt3r

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#2520161 9-Jul-2020 15:37

Blurtie:

Any dual sim phone recommendations here? I know a new Note will be dropping soon - so will keep an eye on that.

I'd recommend any OnePlus device - stock-ish Android with no bloatware, 8-12GB RAM (makes it a very good multi-tasker), unlockable bootloader (which doesn't void the warranty), seamless updates (A/B system) and excellent overall performance, plus it doesn't slow down over time unlike some other heavily-skinned phones.

shrub

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#2520203 9-Jul-2020 16:58

I'm the guy that issues the plans and phones for staff. All plans are now on unlimited data and calling and the number I ether just use the staff members current one or a new number. Never had any issues with this as when they leave they either keep there old number and have to put up with random calls or it gets inactivated.

Devices are not locked down either technically we are just paying the plan the staff provide there own phone or get an old hand me down from senior managers who get new devices every couple of years which we buy outright.

Staff are happy with this arrangement as it is their own phone and no monthly plan to worry about. The only hiccup is when we take on new staff on an existing term plans where you get a "free phone" that costs over $1500 to break the plan.

andrewNZ

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#2520274 9-Jul-2020 18:44

I really like my Moto g5s.
I'm looking to update soon, and I'm pretty sure I'll go for another Moto.

They're good bang for buck IMO.

Handle9

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#2520296 9-Jul-2020 19:17

BlinkyBill:
Handle9:

You're in the fortunate position of being able to know all your employees.

Once you get to a certain size it becomes more difficult without fairly straightforward defined policies.

i do know my team, but my approach comes from somewhere else. I trust my staff to keep databases with private data secure, to maintain IT systems that pay $billions annually, to advise businesses and govt agencies on $m of IT expenditure - why wouldn’t I trust these same individuals to have useful tools and not abuse them?

I believe, and so does my team, that the policies are straightforward. It’s about treating people like responsible adults.

Once an organisation gets big then the challenge is administering it. When you have lots of different teams with managers who all interpret policies differently it is challenging. At some point you get significant inconsistencies in application of highly flexible policies which cause problems with fairness.

Just to give some context I work in an organisation with over 300k employees around the world and around 2000 in the local organisation. It's a bit different to running an SME.

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